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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
THE 
 
 Catskill Mountains 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Region Around. 
 
 Their Scenery, Legends, and History ; 
 
 WITH SKETCHES IN PROSE AND VERSE, BY 
 
 Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Cole, and others. 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. CHARLES ROCKWELL, 
 
 DUTCH DOMINIE OF THE CATSKILLS, 
 AND AUTHOR OF " FOREIGN TRAVEL AND LIFE AT SEA." 
 
 " This prospecH: vast, — what is it ? 
 Viewed aright, 'tis Nature's system of Divinity, 
 *Tis elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand ; 
 Scripture authentic, — uncomipt by Man." 
 
 — Akenside. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 TAINTOR BROTHERS & CO., 229 BROADWAY. 
 
 1867. 
 
Q, Si 
 
 Entered according to Adl of Congress, in tlie year 1867, by 
 
 TAINTOR BROTHERS & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Distrift Court of the United States for the 
 
 Southern Distridl of New York. 
 
 The New York Printing Company, 
 81, 83, axd 8s Cetiire Street. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To the General Reader who may wish through other 
 eyes than his own to look on the beauty and magnificence 
 of nature ; to the inhabitants of the counties of Greene, 
 Ulster, and Schoharie, fond of the history and traditions 
 of their fathers ; to the multitudes who have visited the 
 mountains, and love to read and think of them, and 
 to the thousands who each year visit them, with those 
 who may do so in time to come, this work is respe£l- 
 fuUy inscribed by 
 
 The Author. 
 
■ PREFACE. 
 
 Early in the year i860, the writer, or more properly, 
 perhaps, the compiler of this work, was led, by profes- 
 sional duty, and the healthful climate of the mountains, 
 to make his home in a place of peculiar and romantic 
 beauty, on one of the lower chfFs of the Catskill range, 
 direftly in front of the high proje£lion on which the 
 Mountain House stands. 
 
 Parochial visits, funerals, weddings, and excursions 
 with friends from abroad, led to peculiar familiarity with 
 scenes, obje£ls and events of interest, in and near the 
 mountains, as also with historical and traditionary matter, 
 of permanent value and importance. Events of early 
 Indian and pioneer history were also met with, connefled 
 with war, captivity, and patriotic martyrdom, recorded 
 only in early newspapers, manuscripts and pamphlets, 
 rare, difficult to be found, and so worn and torn by long 
 and firequent reading, as to have well-nigh passed away. 
 So, too, there were aged men, who, with their fathers, 
 were pioneers in the mountain wilderness, some of 
 whom were, like Nimrod, mighty hunters, both of men 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 and beasts of prey; who had fought with and overcome, 
 bears, panthers, Indians, and tories. With these, too, 
 were women, long and late dwellers on earth, some of 
 whom had lived near a century and remembered well the 
 whole of our Revolutionary War, and events earlier than 
 that What they knew and told ought not surely "to pass 
 away and be forgotten. 
 
 There were also only small and imperfe£l guide-books 
 to places and objefts of interest in and near the moun- 
 tains, and a compilation, far from full and complete, of 
 what has been written with regard to them, by authors of 
 high literary and historic fame. In preparing this work, 
 too, the writer has thought, incorredlly it may be, that its 
 historical and traditionary matter, with the glowing record 
 and description of mountain scenery, legends, and history, 
 by some of the most gifted and brilliant writers of our 
 own and other lands, would be of scarcely less interest 
 and value to the general reader than to those who visit 
 the mountains. It is also true of most of those who go 
 there, that they see but a small part of the most interest- 
 ing scenery, and may hence wish to learn what they can 
 of it from the pages of such a work as this. 
 
 As looked upon, also, from a striflly religious and pro- 
 fessional point of view, the author has felt that the time, 
 thought, and labor, which for several years have, as occa- 
 sion required, been bestowed upon this work, were not 
 wholly useless and misplaced. God himself reared the 
 everlasting mountains and perpetual hills, as emblems 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 most impressive of Almighty power and endless duration ; 
 thus ever teaching us lessons of humility and awe, which 
 it is well for us to consider ourselves, and to urge upon 
 others. Mountains, too, have ever been the rich store- 
 house of heavenly Blfessings, and the chosen condu6lors 
 by which the Most High has conveyed to man health and 
 wealth, and has clothed the earth with fertility and beauty. 
 From mountains come the sources of mineral wealth, and 
 they draw from the clouds the moisture which makes glad 
 the earth. As the Psalmist truly says of God, " He send- 
 eth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills. 
 They give drink to every beast of the field. He watereth 
 the hiUs from his chambers ; the earth is satisfied with 
 the fruit of his works. He causeth grass to grow for the 
 cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring 
 forth food out of the earth." Thus, true indeed is it, that 
 
 " The rude mountain, towering to the sky, 
 Whose barren cHfi[s no food for man supply ; 
 Arrests the moisture of the passing cloud, 
 Which veils its summit with a sable shroud : 
 Thus pouring forth through chasms stem and wild. 
 Mid rocks on rocks in lofty masses piled ; 
 The mount^n torrent rushes fiercely down. 
 Where towering cliffs in solemn grandeur fi'own ; 
 Then gently flowing through the lowland vale. 
 Spreads life and verdure where life else would &il.'* 
 
 Mountains too, as rearing their bare and lofty heads to 
 heaven, and pointing thither ; hoary with age, or crowned 
 with, glittering whiteness and spotless purity, like those 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 which cheer and bless the worid of life and light on hig^ ; 
 as thus lofty, and thus crowned, they have been the 
 chosen places of the Divine presence and power on earth, 
 and for ever stand as consecrated monuments of the 
 greatness and glory of God, as made known to man in 
 Conne6lion with them. The glittering summit of Mount 
 Ararat was the prepared resting-place of man in passing 
 from the old world to the new, and ever reminds us of 
 that great evenf. Mount Moriah was the altar from 
 which the humble, holy faith of Abraham shone so 
 brightly forth upon the world. On Sinai, God in mighty 
 power descended. On Tabor heavenly visitants cam.e 
 down to cheer our Saviour in view of coming agony and 
 woe ; and from Olivet he ascended in triumph to heaven. 
 Well, too, has the inspired poet said of the Most High : 
 " Who by his strength setteth fast the mountains, being 
 girded with power. In his hands are the deep places of 
 the earth ; the strength of the hills is his also.'' While 
 the prophet, in still loftier strains, has spoken of the Lord 
 of all, where he says, " God came from Teman, and the 
 Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the 
 heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. He stood 
 and measured the earth ; He beheld and drove asunder 
 the nations ; and the everlasting mountains were scattered; 
 the perpetual hills did bow. His ways are everlasting." 
 
 But aside from health, and wealth, and pleasure, as 
 connedled with mountains, and their great moral and 
 religious teachings, which may be known and read by all. 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 there is also a direCl personal, spiritual lesson, which we 
 may well learn from them, and wisely put in praftice. 
 Augustine, in his Confessions, says : " Men travel far to 
 climb high mountains, to observe the majesty of the ocean, 
 to trace tlie sources of rivers, while they negleft them- 
 selves." Petrarch, having read this passage on the sum- 
 mit of the Alpsj exclaiined : " Admirable reasoning ! Ad- 
 mirable thought ! " " If," said he, " I have undergone so 
 much labor in climbing this mountain, that my body might 
 be nearer heaven, what ought I not to do in order that my 
 soul may be received into those immortal regions." Thus, 
 too, should we all so read, the Book of Nature which God 
 has spread out before us, that to us there may ever be 
 
 "Tongues in trees, sermons in stones 
 Books in the running brooks, and good in everything.*' 
 
 It is further true that the saints of former ages have 
 often found a refuge from the tempest, and a hiding-place 
 from the storm of persecuting cruelty and rage " in moun- 
 tains and deserts, in dens and caves of the earth." In 
 view of such protedlion and deliverance too, as from lofty 
 mountain heights they have, in safety, looked down upon 
 their baffled foes, far, far below them, how often have 
 they felt as did the old Waldensians, when from the moun- 
 tain tops they sang the hallelujah chorus of their noble 
 hymn : 
 
 " For the strength of the hills we bless thee. 
 Our God, our fathers' God." 
 
X Preface. 
 
 In connexion with the name of the author on the title- 
 page of this work, he is styled " Dutch Dominie of the 
 Catskills.'' Some years since Rev. Dr. Murdock, for- 
 merly pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church in Catskill, 
 wrote an historical romance with the title above, the hero 
 of which was Dominie Schunneman, who had charge of 
 the Dutch churches in Greene County, east of the moun- 
 tains, and resided in Leeds, where he died late in the last 
 century. As he lived eight miles from the mountains, 
 while the author of this work was pastor .of a Dutch 
 church among the mountains, and himself lived there, he 
 has, as a matter of humor or caprice, merely assumed the 
 title in question. 
 
 The author's early professional labors were, for years, on 
 board a man-of-war in our navy, and he published on his 
 return from sea two volumes, of more than eight hundred 
 pages in all, entided " Sketches of Foreign Travel, and 
 Life at Sea ; including a Cruise on board a Man-of-War, 
 as also a visit to Spain, Portugal, the south of France, 
 Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Ionian Islands, Continental 
 Greecej Liberia, and Brazil, and a Treatise on the Navy 
 of the United States." It was well received by the pub- 
 lic, while the notices of it by the press were much more 
 full and favorable than the author had anticipated. This 
 is the book referred to on the title-page of the present 
 work. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -o- 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Discovery and Early History x 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Early History continued — Geography and Geology of the Mountains 19 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Ulster County 35 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Incidents of Revolutionary History 52 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Narratives and Adventures of Revolutionary Prisoners 68 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Sufferings and Escapes of Prisoners — Ravages of Tories and Indians. ... 86 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 The Osterhout Narrative— Schoharie County X07 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Early Hunters and their Adventures 123 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 wad Animals I39 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 Legends — Biographical Sketches... - 148 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 The Catskill Mountains, by Irving 162 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 Mountain Scenery — Cooper*s " Pioneers" — " Rip Van Winkle " 177 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 Sketches, by Willis Gaylord Clark, N. P. Willis, Park Benjamin, Harriet 
 Martiueau, Mrs. EUet, Dr. Murdoch, Bayard Taylor, and Rev. Dr. 
 Cuyler 209 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 Thomas Cole, the Artist 263 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 The Cauterskill Falls, by Cole—" The Dutch Dominie of the Catskills ". . 288 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 
 Autumn and Winter Scenery — Summer Resorts 315 
 
 Chapter XVII. 
 
 " The Cauterskill Falls," by Bryant — Dire<5tions for Visiting the Scenes 
 of the Mountains — Conclusion 332 
 
THE 
 
 CATSKILL MOUNTAINS, 
 
 THE REGION AROUND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Hendrick Hudson. — His vessel. — Newark Bay. — Attack by the Indians. — 
 Man killed. — Colman's Point — ^Two Indians seized. — Traffic with Indians. 
 — Yonkers. — West Point — Escape of the Indians. — Catskill Indians. — Hud- 
 son. — Schdai. — Castleton. — Visit to an Indian Chief. — Dog-meat. — Albany. 
 — Trade with Indians. — Return to Catskill and New York. — Voyages of 
 Hudson. — Hudson's Bay and Strait — Mutiny. — His fete and that of his 
 crew. — Humorous Sketch of Hudson by Irving. — Robert Juet — Names of 
 the River. — Indians near it. — Fight near Catskill. — Number of Indians 
 there in 1701. — Indians in Schoharie. — Catskill Tories. — Routed by Captain 
 Long. — Murphy and Elerson. — General Morgan, — His Riflemen. — A mem- 
 ber of Congress. — ^Adventures of Murphy and Elerson.— Boyd and Parker, 
 — Their Fate. — Murphy's Escape. — His Courtship and Marriage. — Scenting 
 Party. — Invasion of Johnson and Brant — Flag of Truce. — Major Wool- 
 sey. — Indians killed by Murphy. — He shot General Fraser. — Sawyer's 
 Escape from Indians. — Harper and Brant. — Massacre of Indians. — Fate of 
 Harper and his Party. — David Elerson. 
 
 WITH a view to give greater fulness and clearness 
 to this work, by casting the light of early events 
 on those of later times, a brief sketch will here 
 be given of the first discovery of the Hudson River, and the 
 country along its banks, by the brave and enterprising old 
 navigator whose name it bears. From the history of the 
 
 I 
 
2 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 cruise of Hendrick Hudson, in his vessel or yacht, the 
 Half Moon, we learn that on September 7, 1609, while one 
 of his boats was returning to his vessel, then lying in New- 
 ark Bay, one of his men, an Englishman, named John Col- 
 man, was killed, the boat having been attacked by two 
 canoes full of Indians. He was shot in the throat by an 
 arrow ; and as he had been a companion of Hudson's in 
 his Polar adventures, having buried him on the beach, he 
 named Sandy Hook "Colman's Point," in honor of him. 
 
 September 11. — Several canoes full of Indian warriors 
 having come off to his vessel, he seized two of the Indians 
 as hostages, and, putting red coats on them, carried them 
 with him up the river.' Having passed the Narrows, In- 
 dians came on board, "making shows of love.'' The 
 next morning, September 12, twenty-eight canoes, made 
 of hoUowed trSes, arid crowded with men, women, and 
 children, came off to the yacht. They were not permitted 
 to come on board, but their oysters and beans were pur- 
 chased. 
 
 September 13. — The vessel was anchored just above 
 Yonkers. 
 
 September 151 — As the morning was misty, they anchor- 
 ed near West Point, by the Matteawan Mountains, the 
 Indian name for the Highlands. When the Half Moon 
 was getting under way from there, the two Indian captives 
 leaped from the portholes, and, scornfully deriding the 
 crew, swam ashore. Running sixty miles up the river, 
 Hudson arrived, near evening, opposite the " mountains 
 which lie from the river's side," and anchored near Cat- 
 skill Landing, where he found a " very loving people, and 
 very ol(f men." This latter faft showing the healthful in- 
 fluence of the mountain air. 
 
 September 16. — Friendly natives flocked on board, 
 with ears of Indian corn, pumpkins, and tobacco, which 
 
And the Region Around. 3 
 
 were readily bought for trifles. In the afternoon, they 
 went six miles higher up, and anchored near the marshes 
 in the river, opposite where Hudson now is. 
 
 September 18. — They anchored between Schodac and 
 Castleton, eighteen miles above Hudson, where Hudson 
 went ashore in a canoe, with an old Indian, who was the 
 chief of a tribe of forty men and seventeen women. There 
 was a house, well construdled of oak bark, circular in 
 shape, with an arched roof. The Indians had a great 
 quantity of corn and beans. Two mats were spread, and 
 food was brought in red, wooden bowls. Two men Were 
 sent to the woods with bows and arrows, for game, who 
 brought back a pair of pigeons. A fat dog was also 
 killed, and skinned in great haste with shells taken from 
 the water. Before Hudson left for his ship, at night, the 
 Indians, thinking that the reason why he would not re- 
 main with them until morning was, that he was afraid of 
 their weapons, took their arrows, and, breaking them in 
 pieces before him, threw them into the fire. 
 
 September 19. — Hudson sailed two leagues farther up, 
 and anchored near where Albany now is. There the In- 
 dians came flocking on board, bringing grapes, pumpkins, 
 and beaver and otter skins, which they exchanged for 
 beads, knives, and hatchets. There they remained several 
 days. While Hudson, on his return, was anchored near 
 where the city of Hudson now is, two canoes, full of In- 
 dians, came up from Catskill, and two old men, one of 
 whom gave him " stropes of beads," and showed him all 
 the country thereabouts. 
 
 September 27. — He ran down the river eighteen miles, 
 sailing past the wigwams of the " loving people " at 
 Catskill, who were "very sorrowful" for his departure, 
 and anchored near Red Hook, where some of the crew 
 went ashore to fish. 
 
4 The Catskill Mountains^ 
 
 It may be well here briefly to notice the adventures 
 and the tragic end of the brave and enterprising navi- 
 gator, Henry, or, as it is in Dutch, Hendrick, Hudson. 
 He was a native of Great Britain ; but nothing is known 
 of his birth, education, or early history. May i, 1607, 
 he sailed from Gravesend, England, in search of a north- 
 ern passage to India, with a small vessel, manned by ten 
 men and a boy ; explored the eastern coast of Green- 
 land, as far north as latitude 80 ; discovered the Island 
 of Spitsbergen, and, being stopped by the ice, returned 
 September 15, of the same year. April 22, 1608, he 
 sought a northwest passage between Spitsbergen and 
 Nova Zembla, failed to find one, and returned in four 
 months. He then went to Holland, entered the service 
 of the Dutch East India Company, and April 6, 1609, sail- 
 ed in the yacht Half Moon for the northeastern coast of 
 Asia, but driven back by the extreme cold, and turning 
 towards America, reached the coast near Portland, Maine, 
 July 28 ; remained there six days ; his men abused and 
 had trouble with the Indians ; reached Cape Cod August 
 3d ; the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, the 28th ; discovered 
 Delaware Bay, and from thence went to Sandy Hook, 
 Coney Island, Newark Bay, and up the North River. In 
 April, 1610, he sailed for the northeast coast of America, 
 discovered Hudson's Bay and Strait in June and July, 
 wintered there, after which his creftr mutinied, and put 
 him and nine men, who were mostly sick and lame, in an 
 open boat, in Hudson's Strait, abandoned them, and they 
 were never heard of more. The leaders in this mutiny were 
 killed soon after by the Indians on the coast. Robert Juet, 
 the companion and journalist-of Hudson in former voyages, 
 died of hunger on shipboard ; and a small remnant of the 
 crew reached Ireland in a condition of extreme weakness 
 and exhaustion, from hunger and exposure on the sea. 
 
And the Region Around. 5 
 
 The humorous account which follows, of the discoveries 
 of Hendrick Hudson, and of the hardy old navigator him- 
 self, is from " Knickerbocker's History of New York," by 
 Washington Irving, Book 1 1, Chapter I. 
 
 " In the ever-memorable year of our Lord 1609, on a 
 Saturday morning, the five and twentieth day of March, 
 Old Style, did Master Henry Hudson set sail from Hol- 
 land, in a stout vessel called the Half Moon, being em- 
 ployed by the Dutch East India Company to seek a north- 
 west passage to China. Henry, or, as the Dutch historians 
 call him, Hendrick, Hudson was a seafaring man of renown, 
 who had learned to smoke tobacco under Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, and is said to have been the first to introduce it 
 into Holland, which gained him much popularity in that 
 country. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, 
 with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper- 
 nose, which was supposed to have acquired its fiery hue 
 from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco-pipe. He 
 wore a true Andrea Ferrara (a sword so called), tucked in 
 a leathern belt, and a commodore's cocked hat on the side 
 of his head. He was remarkable for always jerking up his 
 breeches when he gave out his orders ; and his voice 
 sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet, owing to 
 the number of hard northwesters he had swallowed in the 
 course of his sea-faring life. 
 
 " As chief mate and favorite companion, the Commodore 
 chose Master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, England. By 
 some his name has been spelled Cheiuit, and ascribed to 
 the circumstance that he was the first man that ever 
 chewed tobacco. He was an old comrade and early 
 schoolmate of Hudson, with whom he had often played 
 truant, and sailed chip-boats in a neighboring pond, when 
 they were boys ; from whence, it is said, the Commodore 
 first derived his bias towards a sea-faring life. Juet wrote 
 
6 The Catskill Mountahts, 
 
 a history of the voyage, at the request of the Commodore, 
 who had an unconquerable aversion to writing himself, 
 from having received so many floggings about it when at 
 school. 
 
 " Hudson had laid in an abundance of gin and sour-crout ; 
 and every man was allowed to sleep quietly at his post, 
 unless the wind blew. He a£led moreover in direft cpn- 
 tradidlion of that ancient and sage rule of the Dutch navi- 
 gators, who always took in sail at night, put the helm 
 aport, and turned in ; by which precaution they had a good 
 night's rest, were sure of knowing where they were the next 
 morning, and stood but little chance of running down a 
 continent in the dark. He likewise prohibited the seamen 
 from wearing more than five jackets, and six pairs of 
 breeches, under pretence of rendering them more alert ; 
 and no man was permitted to go aloft, and hand in sails, 
 with a pipe in his mouth, as is the invariable Dutch custom 
 at the present day. They ate hugely, drank profusely, and 
 slept immeasurably ; and, being under the especial guidance 
 of Providence, the ship was safely condufted to the coast 
 of America, where, on the fourth day of September, she 
 entered that majestic bay which, at this day, expands its 
 ample bosom before the city of New York. When Hud- 
 son first saw this enchanting island, he is said to have 
 turned to Master Juet, and uttered these remarkable 
 words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new 
 world, — ' See ! there ! ' — and thereupon he did puff out 
 such clouds of dense tobacco-smoke, that in one minute 
 the vessel was out of sight of land, and Master Juet was 
 fain to wait until the winds dispersed this impenetrable 
 fog. 
 
 " The river which emptied into the bay, it is said, was 
 known to the Indians by the name of the Shatemuck ; 
 though we are assured in an excellent little history, pub- 
 
And tite Region Around. 7 
 
 lished in 1674, by John Josselyn, Gent, that it was called 
 the Mohegan, and Master Richard Bloome, who wrote 
 some time afterwards, asserts the same. This river is also 
 laid down in Ogilvy's iVIap as Manhattan, Noodrt Mon- 
 taigne, and Mauritius River." 
 
 It is claimed that the name " Hudson " was first given to 
 the river by the English, at an early date, in honor of their 
 countryman, who first discovered it ; though Irving speaks 
 of it as first given by the Dutch. 
 ~ • The Indians who, at an early date, were on the Hudson 
 River, in the present counties of Ulster and Greene, were 
 the Mingua clans of Minnisinks, Nanticokes, Mincees, 
 and Delawares. They came from the upper valley of the 
 Delaware, which the Dutch called " The Land of Baca," 
 and, following the Neversink River and the Great Esopus 
 Creek, reached the North River. They were called, by 
 the Dutch, Esopus Indians, from Seepus, a river. It is 
 said that the Dutch early built a rondout, or fort, near the 
 creek ; and hence came the name of "Rondout," given to 
 the region around the fort. Wiltwyck, which means " In- 
 dian village," was near. The word " Minnisink," as applied 
 to these Indians, came from the word " Minnis," or " island," 
 which was in the upper waters of the Delaware, in the re- 
 gion where the missionary Brainerd so successfully la- 
 bored among the Indians. The wigwams of these River 
 Indians extended through Ulster and Greene counties, 
 along the river to Kuxakee, or Coxsackie, which means 
 " place of cut banks," the river there having cut or washed 
 away the banks by a strong flow or current towards the 
 west. The Indians on the east side of the river were 
 called Mohiccans, or, by the Dutch, Mohikanders. 
 
 Beyond the Minnisinks and other Esopus Indians on 
 the west side of the river, from Castle Island up, were the 
 fierce Maguaas, or Mohawks, northward, to the lake of 
 
8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the Iroquois, or Champlain, west, through the valley of the 
 Mohawk, and south, to the sources of the Susquehanna. 
 
 De Vries, in saihng up the Hudson, April 27, 1640, 
 came to " the Esoopus " where a creek emptied, and the 
 Indians had some cleared cornland. In the evening they 
 reached " the Catskill," where there was some open land, 
 on which the Indians were planting corn. Up to this place 
 the river-banks were " all stony and hilly, and were thought " 
 unfit for dwellings. 
 
 ^ Brown, in his " History of Schoharie," relates as a matter 
 of tradition that the Mohawks and the River Indians be- 
 ing bitter enemies, a battle was fought between the Mohe- 
 gans, living east of the river, and the Mohawks, on Wan- 
 ton Island, near Catskill, with a view to decide which 
 tribe should have the honor of naming or choosing a king 
 from their own number. Having fought a whole day, and 
 the Mohegans getting the advantage of the Mohawks, the 
 latter tribe retired to another island, where they made fires 
 and hung their blankets on the bushes, so as to give 
 them the appearance of men. The Mohegans attacked 
 the blankets in the night, and being plainly seen by the 
 Mohawks by the light of their fires, they rushed upon and 
 defeated them. A treaty was then made by which the 
 Mohawks were to have the king, and the Mohegans were 
 to reverence them and call them Uncle, as a title of honor. 
 
 In a petition of the Catskill Indians to Hon. John Nan- 
 fan, "Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of 
 New Yorke, in America, and Vice-Admiral of the same," 
 under date of July 18, 1701, they say, "We are now two 
 hundred fighting-men, belonging to this County of Albany, 
 from Katskill to Skachkook, and hope to increase, in a 
 year's time, to three hundred." They say also that it was 
 then ninety years since Christians (whites) came among 
 them, and speak of the peace there had ever been be- 
 
And the Region Around. 9 
 
 tween the two races there. Thus, too, it continued to be. 
 It is said that Schoharie was first settled by a French 
 Indian, who had been taken prisoner by the Mohawks, 
 and had married a wife from that tribe ; his father-in-law 
 having sent him to Schoharie, fearing that he might be 
 killed by the Mohawks, when drunk, as they hated the 
 French Indians. Others from the Mohawks, Mohegans, 
 Tuscaroras, Delawares, and Oneidas came to him, until 
 they were three hundred strong, and had chiefs who pre- 
 tended to own the whole region around, and sold and 
 gave deeds of it. 
 - The tories among the Catskill Mountains in Saugerties, 
 Catskill, Hunter, Cairo, and elsewhere, during the Revo- 
 lutionary War, were leaders and guides to the Indians in 
 their expeditions for plundering, burning, taking captives, 
 and murdering in that region, and had supplies of provi- 
 sions concealed in the forest and among the rocks, on as 
 far as the Delaware, Susquehanna, Chemung, and Genesee 
 rivers, on the pathway of Indians and their captives to 
 Canada. 
 
 In 1778, Captain Long, of Schoharie County, met there 
 a company of tories from near Catskill, who had been en- 
 listed by Captain Smith for the British service, under Sir 
 John Johnson, then at Niagara, whither they were march- 
 ing. Murphy and Elerson, two famous marksmen and 
 Indian-fighters from Virginia, who had belonged to Mor- 
 gan's celebrated riflemen, at the South, were with Long. 
 As Smith issued from the woods, in advance of his men, 
 he was shot by Elerson and Long, and his men ffed. 
 Smith and his party had intended to spend the night with 
 a prominent tory in Schoharie named Service. Long 
 forthwith led his men there ; and Murphy and Elerson, en- 
 tering his house, made Service a prisoner. When coming 
 out of his house he seized an axe, and aimed a blow at 
 
10 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the head of Murphy, who quickly sprung aside, and 
 avoided it, and in a moment Service was killed by the 
 rifle of Elerson. 
 
 Daniel Morgan, to whose celebrated company of rifle- 
 men Murphy and Elerson belonged, was a native of New 
 Jersey, and born in 1737. When eighteen years of age 
 he went to Virginia ; was with Braddock in his expedi- 
 tion in 175 s as a wagoner ; retorted an insult of a British 
 officer who then tried to run him through with his sword ; 
 whipped the officer ; was sentenced to receive five hun- 
 dred lashes ; fainted when he had received four hundred 
 and fifty, and the officer, convinced of his wrong, apolo- 
 gized to him. In 1775 he came to Cambridge, Massachu- 
 setts, with his riflemen ; in the autumn of that year was 
 with Arnold in his fearful march of forty days through 
 the forests of Maine and Canada to Montreal ; aided in 
 putting down the Whiskey Insurreftion in Pennsylvania 
 in 1794, was chosen a member of Congress in 1799, and 
 served two years. His riflemen, a part if not all of them, 
 were in Schoharie during part of the Revolutionary War. 
 
 David Elerson, the companion-in-arms of Timothy 
 Murphy, was at the head of Otsego Lake in 1779, when 
 ten or twelve Indians came suddenly upon him ; seizing his 
 rifle, he ran for his life, they hurling their tomahawks at 
 him, one of which nearly cut off his middle finger. They 
 then pursued him from eleven o'clock until three. An 
 Indian whom he met fired and made a flesh wound in his 
 side. Soon after this, exhausted by the race and by loss 
 of tlood, he stopped to drink, when, looking behind him, 
 he saw one of his pursuers rising over the brow of a hill 
 in the rear. Him he shot ; and, having loaded his rifle, he 
 hid himself in a hollow tree, where he remained two days, 
 when, crawling out, he found his way to Cobleskill. In 
 his race of four hours in the forest, he ran twenty-five miles. 
 
And the Region Around. 1 1 
 
 Murphy had distinguished himself as a marlcsman in 
 Virginia before he came to Schoharie. He was five feet 
 six inches high, of a daric complexion, well-proportioned, 
 with an iron frame, and an eye that would kindle and flash 
 like lightning when he was excited. He had not a wound 
 nor a scar during all the war. As he had a double-barreled 
 rifle, the Indians wondered how he could shoot twice 
 by loading but once. When pursued by the Indians he 
 shot one of them, with whose gun and and his own he 
 killed three others, when the rest of them fled, saying 
 that he could shoot all day without stopping to load his 
 gun. 
 
 Lieutenant Boyd, with whom Murphy was when Boyd was 
 taken prisoner, was a native of Northumberland County, 
 Pennsylvania, a fine-looking young man, twenty-two years 
 old. Before leaving Schoharie, on Sullivan's expedition, he 
 secured and betrayed the affieftions of a young woman 
 there, who, as he was leaving, said to him, that if he left 
 without marrying her, she hoped that he would be cut to 
 pieces by the Indians ; and never, surely, was an impreca- 
 tion more fearfully fulfilled ; for he was so awfully maimed 
 and tortured by his savage foes, that I forbear to describe 
 the horrid living butchery. In his scout with twenty- 
 seven or twenty-eight men he was met, as some say, by 
 five hundred men, under Butler, while Brant with an 
 equal number was lying in ambush near by, while others 
 claim that both these forces met them. In the first 
 attempt to break through the ranks of the enemy, one of 
 Boyd's men was killed, and many of the enemy. In the 
 second and third onsets seventeen Americans were killed. 
 The third time they broke through the enemy's ranks, and 
 Boyd, seeing Murphy in advance of him, followed him, 
 hoping thus to escape ; but he and Parker, who was with 
 him, were soon captured. 
 
12 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Murphy in his flight, having been pursued by two 
 Indians, fell among the high grass, so that they lost sight 
 of him ; and he, having loaded his gun, moved onwards 
 until he saw an Indian in front of him ; and, both of them 
 sheltering themselves behind trees, each sought to shoot 
 the other. At length Murphy placed his hat on the end 
 of his ramrod, and putting it out so that the Indian could 
 see it he fired, and as it fell rushed forward to scalp his 
 enemy, when Murphy shot him through the breast. Mr. 
 Osterhout, in his letter to me; states that Murphy and his 
 (Osterhout's) father alone of Boyd's party reached the 
 American camp. Another account states that Garret 
 Putnam, of Fort Hunter, and a French Canadian escaped 
 with Murphy. 
 
 Boyd, after he was taken, having made signs as a free- 
 mason, to Brant, was assured that he would not be injured. 
 Afterwards, however. Brant being absent, as Boyd and 
 Parker would not tell Butler what they knew of Sullivan's 
 plans and movements, he gave them up to the Indians, to 
 be tortured. After a time, Parker's head was cut off at a 
 blow ; but Boyd was, in the most horrid manner, cut to 
 pieces, and butchered alive, while his head was sent to a 
 distance and placed on a post, with a view to gratify his 
 savage foes. A part of Boyd's own company afterwards 
 found his headless body, and that of Parker, and buried 
 them under a wild plum-tree, near a stream of water. In 
 1841, sixty-two years after their death, their remains were 
 taken from the earth, near the junftion of two streams 
 now bearing their names, and with imposing ceremonies, 
 in the way of a long procession, an ovation and addresses, 
 were removed to Mount Hope Cemetery, in the city of 
 Rochester, and buried there. 
 
 After Murphy's return from Sullivan's expedition, in the 
 summer of 1780, he engaged to marry Margaret, daughter 
 
And the Region Around. 13 
 
 of Mr. John Feeck, of Middleburg, whom he had known 
 when there two years before. She was about eighteen 
 years of age, which was twelve years younger than Mur- 
 phy, amiable and virtuous ; and as her parents were strong- 
 ly opposed to the match, and closely watched her, they had 
 Maria Teabout, who was half Indian, to carry messages 
 between them. To avoid suspicion, she left home bare- 
 foot, and plainly clothed, on pretence of looking for and 
 milking a stray cow, waded the Schoharie Creek, and met, 
 by agreement. Murphy and his friends, well armed, who 
 took her in triumph on horseback behind him to the mid- 
 dle fort, she having come from the upper fort some five or 
 six miles distant. Her female friends in the fort soon made 
 up an outfit for her use ; her father, who came there for her, 
 was not admitted, and with male and female friends. Murphy 
 went with her in a wagon to Scheneftady, where he bought 
 her a silk dress, and they were married. A rich feast and 
 a ball awaited them on their return ; they were reconciled 
 to her parents about a month afterwards, and Murphy's 
 sons were recently living on the Feeck estate, and may be 
 so still. Murphy was married Oftober 2, 1780. 
 
 A day or two after the marriage feast. Sergeant Lloyd 
 went with Murphy and three others on a scout, and 
 returned the thirteenth day after they left, bringing 
 with them to the fort a tory prisoner from Prattsville. 
 Their return was the evening before the attack on the 
 forts by Sir John Johnson and Brant, which, as some say, 
 took place 06lober 16, and others 17, 1780. Late in Sep- 
 tember, Johnson left Niagara with five hundred British 
 and German troops, and came by Sullivan's road to the 
 Susquehanna River, where he was joined by Brant, who 
 came from Lachine in Canada, with a force of tories and 
 Indians, so that Johnson had, in all, followers estimated 
 by different writers at from eight hundred to two thousand 
 
14 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 men. The elder Stone, in his life of Brant, thinks that 
 there were near one thousand five hundred and fifty, while 
 his son, in his biography of Sir William Johnson, places 
 the number at two thousand. It is said that two Oneida 
 Indians, having deserted from Johnson, brought to the 
 forts at Schoharie news of his expedition ; and yet it is 
 claimed that his troops were first seen by Philip Graft, 
 while they were kindling a fire at daybreak, one fourth of 
 a mile from the upper fort Alarm guns having been fired 
 from this fort. Lieutenant Spencer, with forty men, was 
 sent forth from the middle fort to learn the cause of the 
 alarm, when, meeting with Johnson's men, a fight ensued, 
 and Spencer's force returned towards the fort, Murphy 
 coming last, and not until the board fence from behind 
 which he fired was badly splintered by the bullets of the 
 enemy. It is said that when Murphy was near the fort he 
 shot an Indian eighty yards distant, and rising to fire 
 again a bullet struck within a few inches of his face, 
 throwing dirt in his eyes and glancing over his head, 
 when, having shot another Indian, he entered the fort. 
 Some claim that Murphy and a few others went out to 
 meet Johnson's men, while Spencer and his forty men, 
 during the battle, rushed out and prevented the burning 
 of a barn and several stacks near the fort by the enemy. 
 Contrary to Johnson's orders, the Dutch church at Middle- 
 burg was burned. 
 
 There were some two hundred or three hundred men 
 in the middle fort ; and, when near it, Johnson three times 
 sent three men with a flag of truce towards the fort with 
 favorable terms of surrender and the promise of good 
 treatment. Major Woolsey, who commanded the fort, 
 was in favor of surrendering, saying that they would all 
 be taken and butchered if they did not surrender, and 
 once he went out of the fort to meet the flag. Each time, 
 
And the Region Arotmd. 15 
 
 however, Murphy fired on those who bore the flag, not, it 
 is said, with a view at first to injure them, but to cause 
 them to turn back, as they did. Woolsey with his pistol 
 threatened to shoot Murphy for disobeying orders, and 
 the soldiers were ordered to arrest him, but refused to do 
 so, and rallied around him. Murphy threatened to use 
 his rifle on Woolsey in self-defense, and Captain Right- 
 myer, standing by Murphy, ordered him to fire ; and 
 when Woolsey threatened him he raised the butt of his 
 rifle, club-fashion, assuring him that he would use it on 
 him if he resorted to violence. Woolsey then retired to 
 the women's apartments for safety, from whence he was 
 driven out by their taunts and jeers, and, having crawled 
 around the intrenchments on his hands and knees, he 
 afterwards met Colonel Kooman in the cellar, where he 
 had gone for ammunition, to whom he gave up the com- 
 mand of the fort, and who told him that if he had his 
 sword with him he would run him through with it. After 
 the battle Woolsey was found covered up in bed, trembling 
 like a leaf; and he soon left that region. 
 
 After the flag of truce was thus three times driven back, 
 Johnson attacked the fort. He had a small cannon and 
 two mortars ; but two men only were killed in the fort, and 
 two shells fell within its inclosure, one of which burst 
 without the house, setting it on fire, but so that a pail of 
 water put it out ; while the other went through the roof, 
 into a room where two women were l)ring sick, and ex- 
 ploded in the midst of a pile of feather-beds, which caused 
 one of the women, who had claimed to be helpless, to make 
 double-quick time to another part of the fort, so covered 
 with feathers as to cause her to look much unlike what a 
 philosopher defined man to be, when he said that he was a 
 two-legged animal without feathers. 
 
 Johnson did not trouble the lower fort, but far and wide 
 
1 6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 burned houses, barns, and crops, killed about one hundred 
 of the inhabitants, and took many captives. In one of the 
 Kooman families three were killed, and eleven men, women 
 and children were taken prisoners. Sir John Johnson had 
 less talent and far less influence with the Indians than his 
 father. Sir William Johnson, though he was much aided by 
 Joseph and Mary, or Molly Brant, in direfting and con- 
 trolling the redmen. Johnson died in Montreal, January 
 4, 1830. 
 
 After the war. Murphy boasted that he had killed forty 
 Indians with his own hands, more than half of whom he 
 had scalped. It seems now to be fully proved, that General 
 Fraser was shot by Murphy, near Saratoga, though it has 
 been claimed that another man shot him. Several of 
 Morgan's riflemen having first fired at him without 
 hitting him. Murphy then fired upon him while he was 
 riding at full gallop, and brought him to the ground. The 
 General before his death said that he saw the man who 
 shot him perched in a tree, which was true of Murphy. 
 After the war. General Fraser's remains were removed to 
 England. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War, a man named Sawyer 
 was taken prisoner in Schoharie County by seven Indians, 
 who, having marched eight or ten miles into the wilder- 
 ness, laid down to sleep, when Sawyer, having loosed his 
 bonds, carefully drew a hatchet from the girdle of one of 
 the Indians, with which he killed six of them, and the 
 other having fled. Sawyer returned home. 
 
 Early in April, 1780, Harpersfield was destroyed, and 
 about the same time Colonel Kooman sent out from 
 Schoharie Captain Alexander Harper with a scouting 
 party of fourteen men, who were also to remain for a time 
 in the woods and make maple-sugar. Brant, on his way 
 fi-om Harpersfield to Schoharie, with forty-three Indians, 
 
And the Region Around. 17 
 
 and seven tories, came upon Harper and his men April 7 ; 
 the first warning of Brant's approach being the death 
 of three of Harper's party, who were shot. When Brant 
 had taken the others prisoners, he said, " Harper, I am 
 sorry to find you here." " Why are you sorry t " said 
 Harper. "Because," replied Brant, "I must kill you, 
 though we were schoolmates," and raising his tomahawk, 
 as he looked him fully and closely in the face, asked him 
 if there were any regular troops in Schoharie ; to which 
 Harper replied that three hundred Continental troops had 
 been stationed there two or three days before. This was 
 not true, but Harper wished thus to save the county from 
 pillage and murder. Twice after this Brant repeated the 
 examination in the most searching and threatening man- 
 ner, but Harper firmly adhered to what he had before 
 said. The Indians wished to kill Harper and his ten 
 companions, but Brant protefted them. The prisoners 
 were heavily laden with booty, and when they came to the 
 Susquehanna River, they used floats to carry them. 
 Brant, being sick with the fever and ague, killed a 
 rattlesnake, and, having made a soup of it ate it and was 
 cured. 
 
 While on their journey, Brant sent eleven of his warriors 
 to Minnisink for prisoners. They took five strong men, 
 and brought them to Tioga Point, where during the night 
 one of them, having loosed his hands, released the rest, 
 when with the tomahawks of the Indians they killed nine 
 of them in their sleep, and struck the tenth between his 
 shoulders as he was trying to flee from them, so that one 
 only escaped and reached Brant and his party. Harper 
 and his men then fully expedled to be put to death, but 
 the chief who had escaped interceded for them and saved 
 their lives, thinking, perhaps, that the innocent ought not 
 to suffer for the guilty. Their sufferings on the way to 
 2 
 
1 8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Canada were great, having been forced to eat meat from 
 the carcass of a horse, and other unsavory food. They 
 were saved by Brant from running the gauntlet, regard 
 being in this thing had to Harper, whose niece, Miss 
 Jane Moore, having been taken prisoner at Cherry Valley, 
 and carried to Canada, had married an officer of the 
 Niagara garrison, named Powell. Harper and those with 
 him were sent first to Montreal, then to Chamblee, 
 where they suffered greatly in prison ; after that to 
 Quebec and to Halifax, from whence they returned to 
 their friends after peace was made in 1783. 
 
 David Elerson, the companion-in-arms of Murphy, 
 seems to have lived in Schoharie long after the Revolu-' 
 tionary War, as Simms, in his history of that county, 
 often quotes him as authority for statements which he 
 makes. 
 
And the Region Around. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Firet Settlement of Scholiarie. — Queen Anne, — Lands Purchased. — German 
 Emigrants. — East and West Camps. — They reach Schoharie. — Contest with 
 Bayard. — The Seven Partners.— Greene County. — The Catskill Mountains. — 
 Their Form, !Dire(5lion, and Extent. — Their Mineralogy and Geology. — 
 Quarries and their Products. — Geological Sketch uf the Earth and its Strata. 
 — Glacial A<5tion. — Traces and Results of its Upheaval of Mountains. — 
 Professors Agassiz and Guyot — Nature and Extent of Glacial A(5tion. — 
 Frodu<5ts of Greene County. — Tanneries. — The Palens. — Colonel Edwards 
 and Son. — Colonel Pratt and Son. — ^Tannersville. — Tanner's Bank. — Erie 
 Canal. — Hudson River and Harlem Railroads. — Their Effedls on CatskilL — 
 The Hardenburg Patent — Stephen Day. — Emigrants from Connedlicut. — 
 Burton J. Morss. — Hunter. — Early Settlers There. — Shay's Men. — Lind- 
 sey's Patent — Leverage Patent — Beekman's Patent — Salisbury and 
 Van Bergen Patent — Extent of these Patents, — Statistics of Greene 
 County. 
 
 ' I ^HE following fafts conne6led with the first settle- 
 ■ ment of Schoharie County by the whites may 
 
 properly be given here. Queen Ann, wishing to 
 settle emigrants in America, sent an agent there to pur- 
 chase land, who bought twenty thousand acres on the Scho- 
 harie Kill or Creek. She then sent to Germany for emi- 
 grants to come and occupy these lands free of cost. January 
 1, 1710, a vessel sailed from some port on the Rhine, down 
 that river to Holland, and from thence to England, stopping 
 some time there, and being better provided for their journey. 
 After a long voyage, during which many of them died, they 
 reached New York June 14, 1712, more than two years after 
 they left German^. They were sent up the Hudson River, 
 and spent the next winter in huts made of logs and earth, in 
 the towns of Germantown and Saugerties, on opposite 
 
 1 
 
20 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 sides of the river, the places where they wintered having 
 ever since been called East and West Camp. 
 
 In the spring they went to Albany, where one hundred 
 of them enlisted to serve in the British army, under Col- 
 onel Nicholson ; and others, with the tools and provisions 
 furnished them by the Queen on their backs, went to 
 Schoharie, by an Indian footpath, travelling a distance of 
 thirty miles in four days. Some years afterwards, an 
 agent by the name of Bayard, was sent to these emigrants, 
 to give them a legal title to their lands and extend to them 
 the proteftion of the laws ; but they, fearing taxation and 
 oppression, raised a mob against him, and sought to do 
 him violence. These rioters, armed with guns, pitchforks, 
 hoes, and clubs, surrounded the hotel where he was, and 
 fired some sixty bullets into the straw roof of the building. 
 Bayard had pistols, which he fired from time to time, to 
 frighten them, and kept them at a distance. At night he 
 went to Schenechtady, and sent back offers to them to 
 give deeds to all of them who would come to him, with an 
 ear of corn in payment for their lands. As none of them 
 came, he went to Albany, and sold the lands to a private 
 company styled the "Seven Partners," Novembers, 1714. 
 They bought at first ten thousand acres, to which they 
 added largely afterwards. Offended by this, and by the 
 punishment of some of the leading rioters, a part of the 
 settlers removed from Schoharie, while others were in- 
 duced to remain and submit to the burdens which their 
 violence and foUy had brought upon them. 
 
 Greene County, in which is most of the group or range 
 of lofty heights known as the Catskill Mountains, was 
 formed from portions of Albany and Vlster counties, 
 March 25, 1800. It was named in honor of General 
 Nathaniel Greene, of Rhode Island. 
 
■> '^^ ^-^K 5^ \ 
 
 J i''Vffiialtei'''vi:'''i''' ' ■■■ Til "■**"*'■ ■ 
 
 CATSKILL MOUNlArN HOUSE. 
 
And the Region Around. 21 
 
 The central parts of the county are about thirty miles 
 south of Albany. The nearest point of the base of the 
 mountains, to the western bank of the Hudson River, is 
 seven miles, by the road ; while the Mountain House, on 
 one of the eastern heights, is twelve miles from the river. 
 The main range of the mountains extends about twelve 
 miles north and south, nearly parallel to the river, and at 
 the northern extremity inclines to the northwest, and at 
 the southern to the west, extending thence, along the 
 southern border of the county, to Delaware County ; while 
 on the north it connefls with the lower range, known as 
 the Schoharie Mountains, extending along the southern 
 border of the county of the same name, while along its 
 eastern part, extending into Albany County, is the range 
 known as the Hellebark Mountains. 
 
 These mountains belong to the great Appalachian or 
 Alleghany range of mountains, but are more Alpine than 
 other portions of this range, the elevated peaks rising 
 higher above the general range of the summits below them. 
 As elsewhere in these mountains, the eastern slope of the 
 Catskills is abrupt, precipitous, and broken, while their 
 western descent is more gentle and gradual. These east- 
 ern slopes are also often in distinft strata, looking like a 
 succession of extensive and regular terraces, such as are 
 seen north of the Cauterskill Clove, At the eastern base 
 strata of the Old Red Sandstone formation are seen, dip- 
 ping abruptly in towards the central axis. Then gray slaty 
 sandstones, of hard texture, make up the most precipitous 
 slopes, except those of the highest summits, which are 
 capped by the conglomerate of white quartz pebbles. This 
 is the basis or floor of the coal formation, and is found on 
 the highest knobs of the Alleghanies. Coal-beds are found 
 direftly above this conglomerate quartz; and, were the 
 Catskill Mountains one hundred feet or more higher than 
 
22 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 they are, some of the lowest of the coal-beds might be 
 found there. Black shales are sometimes met with among 
 the conglomerate, and seams of anthracite coal a few 
 inches thick, showing a near approach to carboniferous or 
 coal-bearing strata or deposits. 
 
 The upper Hudson River group of mountains is partly 
 clay slate, and partly talcose schist, with occasional beds of 
 limestone, such as are met with between Catskill and the 
 base of the mountains. The Catskill Red Sandstone is the 
 upper member or portion of this kind of rocks in this coun- 
 try, and is about three thousand feet thick. The whole 
 thickness of the system in the United States is 11,750 feet. 
 Between the Dutch church, at the base of the mountains, 
 and the Rip Van Winkle Glen, there are fifty-seven dis- 
 tinft layers, or strata of rock, mostly grit shale, of different 
 colors, and one hundred and thirty-seven layers in all, up to 
 the summit of the mountains. From the river to the Moun- 
 tain House, most of the different kinds of rocks found in the 
 whole State of New York, of the depth in all of near four 
 thousand feet, may be seen. The Catskill division of rocks 
 has but few minerals in it. Small quantities of iron, copper, 
 lead, and zinc are extensively found in a particular kind or 
 layer of rock, in different parts of Greene, Ulster, Sullivan, 
 and Delaware counties, but nowhere in veins of more than 
 eighteen inches thick. This rock is generally a calcareous 
 or limestone conglomerate of breccia or pudding-stone, 
 formed of small masses of limestone, included in a reddish 
 or brownish paste of the underlying shale, or slaty rock- 
 bed. 
 
 Stones, for paving and building, are obtained in immense 
 quantities from quarries along the base and the eastern 
 front of the Catskill Mountains, which are transported, by 
 way of the Hudson River, to all parts of the United States. 
 The strata, or layers, in which these rocks are found, are 
 
And the Region Around. 23 
 
 from two to fifteen feet or more in thickness, with slabs of 
 from four or five to one hundred or more square feet of 
 surface, and from one to six or more inches in thickness ; 
 often traversed or crossed by joints, or seams, perpendic-' 
 ular to the surface, as smooth as if cut by a saw, though 
 at times there is no break or seam in these rocks for one 
 hundred and fifty feet or more in horizontal length. These 
 quarries are commonly leased to those who work them, and 
 who sell the stone to large dealers and shippers, on the 
 banks of the river, from two to five dollars for each one 
 thousand feet taken from the quarries, being paid by those 
 who work them. Judge Hasbrouck, of Kingston, for ex- 
 ample, leased his quarries for five dollars for one thousand 
 feet, each square yard yielding from fifty to seventy square 
 feet, or three hundred thousand feet to the acre, bringing 
 him in fifteen hundred dollars per acre ; though he gave, 
 a few years since, but a dollar an acre for the land. Among 
 the largest dealers in stone are the Messrs. Bigelow, of 
 Maiden, on the river, near Saugerties, in Ulster County. 
 They are brothers of the Hon. John Bigelow, recently 
 United States Minister at the Court of France. In i860, 
 it was computed that in Sullivan, Ulster, Greene, and 
 Albany counties, there were three million five hundred 
 thousand square feet of flag or paving stones quarried 
 and sent to market Much more than this amount must 
 now be wrought and shipped from these counties annu- 
 ally, to say nothing of large quantities of brick, made all 
 along the western bank of the river, and the hydraulic 
 or water-cement manufaftured in large quantities in Ulster 
 County. 
 
 At this point it may be well to notice certain principles 
 and fafts connefted with the hard, rocky shell or outer 
 covering of the earth, as made known to us by the science 
 of Geology, of some of which striking proofs and illus- 
 
24 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 trations are met with in the Catskill Mountains and the 
 region around. Geologists divide the rocks on and beneath 
 the surface of the earth into five classes. First and lowest 
 of these are the primary, or crystalline, which are in solid, 
 massive, irregular forms, without strata, or layers. The 
 rocks of this class are granite, sienite, porphyry, trap, and 
 lava. They have in them no traces or remains of plants 
 or animals, and are supposed to owe their form, origin and 
 structure to the aftion of fire raging and melting beneath 
 them. The second, or Palaeozoic class, contain the earliest 
 traces of the forms of animals and plants, were mostly 
 deposited in the ocean, and are some thirty-three thousand 
 feet, or more than six miles thick, or deep. The third 
 class are called Secondary rocks, extending from the top 
 of the lower new red or Permian system to the top of the 
 chalk formation, a depth or thickness of five thousand feet, 
 or nearly one mile. The Tertiary strata come next in 
 order; partly solid, but with very different organic remains 
 from those of the strata below them, with an average thick- 
 ness of about two thousand feet, or more than one-third of a 
 mile. Last and uppermost is Alluvium, or the earth and 
 rocks forming the surface of our globe, to a depth of two 
 hundred feet or more, and made up mainly of decayed and 
 decaying animal, mineral and vegetable matter. The lower 
 or primary rocks, seem to have been forced up through, 
 and far above, the overlying strata and the level surface 
 of the earth, by the aftion of heat below them, so as in 
 many instances to form the summits of lofty mountains ; 
 and, in the case of lava, still to overflow these mountains. 
 Granite seems to have been thus forced up first, then 
 sienite and porphyry from below it ; after these the various 
 kinds of trap-rock, from below the porphyry ; and last the 
 lava, which still rises from beneath all the rest. 
 
 Geologists claim that at the end of the Tertiary period 
 
And the Region Around. 25 
 
 of deposit, when the alluvial mass began to be formed, 
 there was a long, dreary winter of ice and snow, which 
 extended far down towards the equator, when mighty gla- 
 ciers and masses of ice, loaded on their lower surface with 
 vast rocks, were borne far and wide along the surface of 
 the earth, crushing and levelling down hills, removing the 
 summits of lofty mountains, and deeply ploughing along, 
 and marking their upper heights and sides, thus preparing 
 for the surface of the earth a covering which would, in after 
 times, aid in furnishing food for man and beast. The 
 extent of this ploughing and grinding movement is deter- 
 mined by the limits of the crushed and broken ruins it has 
 left behind it 
 
 There are evident traces of the aftion of these glaciers 
 along the valleys of the Penobscot, the Connefticut, the 
 Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Susquehanna rivers. On 
 the Catsldll Mountains, as we learn from Ramsey, the 
 glacial scratches and grooves are numerous, and extend up 
 to where the Mountain House stands, nearly three thou- 
 sand feet above the level of the sea. All but a few of 
 the highest of these grooves run from north to south along 
 the flanks of the precipices in the direftion of the Hudson 
 River Valley, and not from west to east, down the slope of 
 the mountain. The principal grooves run between south, 
 twenty-two degrees east, and south, fifty-five west. These 
 variations seem to be connefted with bends and other irreg- 
 ularities, in the direftion of the great eastern wall of the 
 mountains. The course south, fifty-five degrees west, is 
 found at the top, near the Mountain House ; while at the 
 summit of the water-shed, there are numerous main grooves, 
 passing across the mountain at right angles to most of those 
 observed in ascending it 
 
 As freezing water expands, or fills more space than 
 before, after reaching thirty-nine and one-half degrees, it 
 
26 The Catskill Mountains, •. 
 
 thus opens and widens seams in rocks, rends them asun- 
 der, and rolls them down precipices ; while in soft, porous 
 rocks, it crumbles off the surface and decomposes them. 
 Beneath the high cliffs, and all along the base of the Cats- 
 kill and other high mountains, are immense masses of 
 these detached and decomposed rocks. Much of the soil, 
 on large portions of the surface of the earth, has come 
 from this process, which, in icy regions, is constantly going 
 on. Glaciers, or immense moving masses of ice and snow, 
 descend by their own weight and the pressure of the mass 
 above them along valleys, from snow-covered mountains, 
 and are from two thousand to five thousand feet deep, being 
 fed by the snow and frozen mist of regions of perpetual 
 snow and ice. They reach from five thousand to seven 
 thousand five hundred feet, or from a mile to a mile and a 
 half below the line of perpetual snow ; their depth or thick- 
 ness being such that the heat of summer does not melt 
 them. 
 
 It is a singular faft connefled with the upheaving of 
 some of the lower and earlier strata which form the crust 
 of the earth, that remains of various kinds of animals, 
 which grew in the depths of the ocean, are found in the 
 Alps, from six thousand to eight thousand, and in the 
 Andes fourteen thousand, feet above the level of the sea ; 
 and these not brought there by any sudden overflow of 
 the waters of the great deep, but deposited for ages in 
 beds of great thickness ; so that these remains must have 
 been forced up from below by some mighty power beneath 
 them, or else the sea must have retired from its former 
 level. Saussure says that the summit of Mount Blanc, 
 .which is thirteen thousand feet high, must have been two 
 leagues below the level of the sea, and that the granite 
 formed there was afterwards raised. The peaks of the 
 Andes are mostly volcanic, no granite having been found 
 
And the Region Around. 27 
 
 there higher than eleven thousand five hundred feet Were 
 it not for the abundant remains of plants and animals in 
 the different strata and systems of rocks, we could not be 
 sure that all rocks were not of one and the same age and 
 date. The beds of granite, which in mountain peaks and 
 ranges are nearly vertical or perpendicular, owing to their 
 having been forced up from below, must have become solid 
 before they were thus raised up. 
 
 More than thirty years since. Professor Agassiz, now 
 of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Professor Guyot, of 
 Princeton, New Jersey, engaged in njinute and extensive 
 observations among the Alps, near which they were 
 born, with a view to determine the movements and 
 " agency of glaciers across the valleys of Switzerland be- 
 tween one mountain range and another; the result of 
 their investigations and those of others, there and else- 
 where, having thus far been in part as follows, as stated 
 by Professor Agassiz : " That there was a time, immedi- 
 ately preceding the state of things which now prevails 
 upon the earth, during which the whole surface of the 
 globe was covered by masses of ice as thick, as extensive, 
 as compaft as those which now overspread the Arftic 
 regions ; and perhaps we shall see, that even where the 
 tropical sun now shines, there was at one time a field 
 of ice extending over the Valley of the Amazon toward 
 the Atlantic, and covering, it may be, the sea to such an 
 extent, that the question may be fairly asked, whether 
 there was not open water at the equator. Thus, by in- 
 tense cold, life must have been banished from the surface 
 of the earth, so as to prepare it for the new creation which 
 now exists upon it ; this severe winter having put an end 
 to all living beings on the surface of the globe." 
 
 As glaciers are not solid ice, but snow, penetrated by 
 water and but partially frozen, hence they move slowly 
 
28 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 down the sides of mountains, at the rate of from twenty 
 to two hundred and fifty feet, or more, in a year ; the 
 centre of a glacier being higher than its sides, and 
 moving faster, inasmuch as the sides are melted by the 
 heat of the rocks and cliffs against which they press ; and 
 from this cause also their motion is made slower by 
 means of friflion. As also the heat of the sun passes 
 freely through the glaciers, the rocks under them, by this 
 heat, shape for themselves a mould, or firm resting-place 
 in the mass above them, and are borne onwards by the 
 movement of the glaciers, so as to smoothly wear, or deeply 
 furrow the surface of rocks and mountains over which 
 they move. Hence " the lower surface of the glaciers is 
 like a file, thickly set with diamonds, constantly grooving, 
 furrowing, polishing or scratching the surface over which 
 it moves," writing or deeply engraving the record of their 
 deeds of violence on the region over which they pass. 
 The course of glaciers is traced, not only by the marks 
 just noticed, but by the rocks they have carried along with 
 them, and left by the way ; so that thus there is evidence 
 that the Valley of Switzerland, between the Jura Moun- 
 tains and the Alps, was once covered to the depth of 
 three thousand feet. 
 
 On visiting Great Britain, Ireland, and the United 
 States, and more recently the Valley of the Amazon, 
 Professor Agassiz found traces of the aftion of glaciers 
 extending down to the sea-coast, and reaching as far as 
 South Carolina, or to thirty-two degrees of north latitude. 
 In Maine he was satisfied, by observation, that glaciers 
 there must have been six thousand feet, or more than one 
 mile in thickness ; and he is now convinced that we have 
 had snow-fields on this continent, -covering the land to 
 the depth of twelve thousand or thirteen thousand feet. 
 The difficulty urged against the moving of glaciers on 
 
And tite Region Around. - 29 
 
 level ground is met by the fadt, that they do thus move in 
 Greenland, that there are traces of such motion in our 
 own country, and that the rapidly accumulating masses of 
 snow in the colder latitudes would create a pressure . 
 towards the warmer regions, where the melting of the 
 snow would open a way for the pressure in the rear. 
 
 By extensive and minute observation. Professor Agassiz 
 is satisfied that the whole valley of the Amazon was once 
 occupied by a stupendous glacier, coming down from 
 the Andes, and reaching the Atlantic ; and that all the 
 loose materials which now form the bottom of the valley of 
 the Amazon, were ground down by that ice, and scattered 
 evenly over the whole land, as the valley of the Rhine is 
 covered with mud and clay, once ground in the Alps, and 
 brought down by the waters from the glaciers in that 
 region. 
 
 To the views of Professor Agassiz, with regard to the 
 utter destruftion of animal and vegetable life, just before 
 the creation of the animals and plants now on the face of 
 the earth, it is urged, that we now find, in England for 
 example, more than nine-tenths, or ninety-six per cent of 
 the species which existed during the latest tertiary period, 
 and before the glacial. Hence it follows, that, if all tliese 
 species were destroyed by the universal reign of snow 
 and ice, they must, of course, have been re-created at the 
 beginning of the present order of things ; an event not 
 impossible surely, how improbable soever it might seem 
 to have been. 
 
 The streams from the eastern slope of the Catskill 
 Mountains soon reach the Hudson, while those from the 
 west flow into the Mohawk and Delaware rivers. 
 
 The principal produfts of Greene County, besides stone, 
 are pressed hay, which is shipped in large quantities, I ndian- 
 com, rye, buckwheat, oats, potatoes, butter, and cheese. 
 
30 - The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 The principal manufaflured articles are brick, paper, 
 cotton and woollen goods, and formerly large quantities 
 of leather, before the mountains were stripped of their 
 .widespread growth of hemlock bark. Thirty or forty 
 years ago, Greene County made more leather than all the 
 State of New York besides. 
 
 About 1817, when improved methods of tanning leather 
 were discovered, numerous tanneries were established 
 among the Catskill Mountains. The Palens of Palens- 
 ville, a family of much intelligence, worth, and suc- 
 cessful business enterprise, built a large tannery at the 
 lower entrance of CauterskiU Clove, near the commence- 
 ment of the present century, earlier than the date named 
 above. In July, 1717, Colonel William W. Edwards and 
 his son, of the same name, removed from North Hampton, 
 Massachusetts, to the village of Hunter, and eredted there 
 the first extensive tannery in the State, in which what was 
 then the new mode of tanning was adopted ; and the family 
 still have a summer residence there. Colonel Zadoc Pratt, 
 from whom Prattsville, formed from Windham, in 1833, was 
 named, tanned two million sides of sole-leather there, 
 besides being extensively and successfully engaged in 
 agricultural pursuits. He has been a hberal patron of the 
 different churches in the village where he resides, and of 
 other worthy objefts ; was a member of Congress ; and 
 his bust, with that of his noble and patriotic son, also 
 a large manufafturer of leather, a brave officer in our 
 late war, and a viftim of it, has beeil cut in the soHd 
 rock of a high cliff which overhangs the village. There 
 are the decayed and decaying ruins of what was once 
 a busy and thrifty village of tanners in the wild ravine 
 of the CauterskiU Clove, nearly opposite the Laurel 
 House ; and this place, and the region above it, once 
 known as Tannersville, with the Tanner's Bank in Catskill, 
 
And the Region Around. 31 
 
 are memorials of a business which did much to increase 
 the population and wealth of the county, and to clothe 
 with produ6live fertility the hillsides and mountains far 
 and wide around. 
 
 Before the Erie Canal was opened Catskill shared in the 
 trade of Southern and Western New York as far as Lake 
 Erie, as also of Northern Pennsylvania ; but the Canal, 
 with the Erie, Hudson River, and Harlem Railroads, 
 by turning travel and trade in other direftions, have 
 seriously affefted the condition and prospefts of the 
 place. Catskill was once a great wheat-market ; and at 
 the Falls of the Catskill, three miles west of the village, 
 were the most extensive flouring-mills in the State. 
 
 The great Hardenburgh patent, granted to Johannes 
 Hardenburgh, of Kingston, Ulster County, by Queen 
 Anne, April 10, 1708, who had previously purchased the 
 land of the Indians, covered nearly all of Greene County 
 lying west of the mountains, with large portions of adjoin- 
 ing counties. The north line of this grant commenced at 
 the lakes just back of the Mountain House, the head 
 waters of the Cauterskill, and ran northwest to the head 
 waters of the west branch of Delaware River, in Stam- 
 ford, Delaware County. Stephen Day, from Wallingford, 
 Connecticut, early bought a tradl, embracing a large part 
 of the old town of Windham, now made up of Windham, 
 Ashland, Jewett, and a part of Lexington and Hunter. 
 This region was extensively settled by emigrants from 
 Connecticut, as was also the town of Durham, north of the 
 mountains, and their descendants retain the moral and 
 religious traits, and have much of the industry, economy, 
 business ta6t, shrewdness and success, which are met 
 with in " the Land of Steady Habits." At Red Falls, on 
 Batavia Hill, in Prattsville, Burton J. Morss, Esq., has 
 a large manufadtory of cotton cloth, as also another in Gil- 
 
32 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 boa, in Schoharie County, while his extensive farms, and 
 his large herds of cattle, of the best English breeds, have 
 made him the benefa6tor of the region where he lives, 
 and have caused him to be widely known in the State as 
 a man of uncommon energy, enterprise, intelligence and 
 worth. 
 
 The Mountain House is on the line of the town of 
 Hunter, while the Laurel House, the Haines House, 
 Gray's, and some of the wildest ravines and the loftiest 
 peaks of the Catskills, are also in Hunter. Samuel, Elisha, 
 and John Haines, and Gershom Griffin, early came to 
 Hunter by the way of Kingston and Mink Hollow, to the 
 south and east, and were discovered there, a year or two 
 afterwards by some Dutchmen, who came there from the 
 east side of the mountain hunting bears. They were fol- 
 lowed in 1786 by a number of Shays' followers, from 
 Massachusetts, who, on their defeat by the troops under 
 General Lincoln, fled there for safety. Shays himself lived 
 in Schoharie County, after the -suppression of the insur- 
 reftion which bears his name, and died in 1825. 
 
 The portion of Greene County, between the mountains 
 and Hudson River, was much of it early held by a few 
 large proprietors, who bought their lands of the Indians, 
 and then obtained patents, or grants from the monarchs of 
 Great Britain, confirming their claims to these lands, and 
 giving them a full legal title to them. Lindsey's patent, 
 which was an early one, dating back in the seventeenth 
 century, covered seven hundred or eight hundred acres, 
 where the village of Catskill now is, and in the country 
 round. The Loverage patent of about one thousand acres 
 embraced the Imbougbt below Catskill, and was bounded 
 east by Hudson River, and north and west by Cauterskill 
 and Catskill creeks ; its south line being near where the 
 Gardiners live, in the Imbought. Beekman's patent was in 
 
And the Region Around. 33 
 
 Kiskatom, from where Kiskatom Creek enters into the 
 Cauterskill, north to the Catskill patent line, and the 
 Greene patent, to near Peely Lawrence's ; embracing lands 
 owned by Abraham Ramsen and others, along the fer- 
 tile valley of Kiskatom and a little east of it. Greene's 
 patent covered a large traft along the eastern base of the 
 mountains, and extending west up their slope and over 
 their summits. 
 
 In the year 1677, Sylvester Salisbury, who came to this 
 country with Governor Nicoll, and had command of Fort 
 Albany, and Martin G. Bergen, purchased from the Indians 
 their title to a large traft of land. For this a patent was 
 given in 1688 ; and, as Salisbury was then dead, his wife, 
 Elizabeth, held the land with Van Bergen. Salisbury had 
 rendered meritorious service in the British army. This 
 traft embraced five flats, on both sides of the Catskill 
 Creek, near Leeds, and above the lands of Elder Degouer 
 Geritsen, since known as the Van Vechten farm, which was 
 first occupied by that family in 168 1. From this grant the 
 Brunk farm also was excepted, a traft of about one hundred 
 acres, the house having been just back of where John Van 
 Vechten, Esq., of Leeds, now lives ; who, as a surveyor of 
 long and wide experience, has given me much valuable 
 information with regard to the early history of the county, 
 of which he was a native, and now at the age of fourscore 
 remembering the time when there were but five houses 
 where the village of Catskill now is. 
 
 From the flats, spoken of above as a tenter, this grant 
 of Salisbury and Van Bergen extended four miles east, west, 
 north, and south, exclusive of the farms just spoken of, and 
 of the lands covered by the earlier patents already noticed. 
 Its southern bound was just below the covered bridge, near 
 Zechariah Dederick's ; on the west it reached to the eastern 
 line of the farm of the late John R. Linzey, on the side of 
 3 
 
34 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 the mountain, and embraced nearly the whole of the town 
 of Athens, and a part of Cairo and Coxsackie. 
 
 Greene County contains six hundred and eighty-six 
 square miles ; its population is 15,591 males, and 15,546 
 females, a difference of only forty-five in a population .of 
 31,137, and this too in favor of males, a state of things very 
 uncommon in the older portions of our Union. Among 
 its annual produfls are 480,795 bushels of grain, 116,871 
 bushels of potatoes, 192,814 bushels of apples, 1,191,930 
 pounds of butter, and 21,317 pounds of cheese. 
 
And the Region Around. 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ulster County.— Cloves and Mountains. — Its Extent. — Early Settlements. — 
 The First Fort. — Indian Troubles. — ViUage Site. — Wars of 1659 and 1663. — 
 Indians Sold as Slaves. — Treachery of the Indians. — Their Punishment — 
 Treaties With Them. — Kingston in 1695. — Dutch Church There. — Hugue- 
 nots at Kingston.— Their History.— They Settle on the Wallkill.— Roman- 
 tic Tradition. — Price Paid for Lands. — The Dubois Family. — Child Saved 
 on the Ice. — The Eltinges. — Fafts Favoring the Tradition. — Church at New 
 Paltz.— Rev. Dr. Stitt's History of it.— Letter from Rev. Dr. Peltz.— Fox- 
 Hall Patent — Thomas Chambers. — Revolutionary War. — General Vaughan. 
 — Kingston Burned. — Its Early History.— Andresen and Osterhout — But- 
 ler's Raid. — The Jansens. — Caldwell's Expedition. — Vanderlyn the Artist — 
 Delaware and Hudson Canal. — Coal Trade. — Water Cement — Mines and 
 Quarries. — Mauufa^flures and Statistics of the County. 
 
 THE dividing line between Ulster and Greene coun- 
 ties crosses the Catskill Mountains a short dis- 
 tance south of Cauterskill Clove, so that all the 
 eastern part of the county can be plainly seen from the 
 Mountain House ; while the Plattekill Clove, and some of 
 the wildest, boldest and most pifturesque and romantic of 
 the mountain scenery of the Catskills is in Ulster County ; 
 Overlook Mountain, in Woodstock, being 3,500 feet above 
 tide-water, with Shue's Lake, a beautiful mountain gem, 
 near its summit. The Snyders and others, taken by the 
 Indians and carried to Canada, as spoken of in this work, 
 lived in Ulster County, while its early history, from the year 
 1614 and onwards, has in it much of interests connefted 
 both with Indian warfare and our long and fearful Revolu- 
 tionary struggle. A brief and rapid sketch of a few of the 
 more prominent events in the history of the county will there- 
 
36 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 fore here be given, as it properly belongs to a description 
 of the Catskill Mountains and the country around them. 
 
 Ulster County was formed November i, 1683, and includ- 
 ed the country extending from the Hudson to the Dela- 
 ware rivers, bounded on the north and south by lines run- 
 ning due east and west, from the mouths of Sawyer's and 
 Murderer's creeks. Portions of the county have since 
 been annexed to other counties, and some additions have 
 been made to it. In 1614, the Dutch established a trading- 
 post where Rondout now is. The first fort there is 
 said to have been in the western part of Rondout, on a 
 level piece of ground, still called by its Indian name, 
 Ponckhockie. This trading-post was established six years 
 before the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts was found- 
 ed, and it is thought that a few Dutch families settled 
 there not long after. This settlement was soon broken 
 up by the Indians, and a new one was commenced be- 
 tween the years 1630 and 1640. In 1655, owing to the 
 fearful ravages of the Indians near Manhattan, now New 
 York, all the settlers at Esopus left their farms en masse. 
 In 1658 a site for a village was selefted, and staked out, 
 by Governor Stuyvesant, who came there from New York, 
 its inclosure being two hundred and ten yards in circum- 
 ference, and a guardhouse sixteen feet by twenty-three 
 was built. The Governor left twenty-four soldiers there 
 to proteft the place ; and the Indians made a free gift of 
 the land to him as " Grand Sachem," as they said, " to 
 grease his feet, as he had undertaken so long and painful 
 a journey to meet them." 
 
 In September, 1659, Thomas Chambers having given 
 some brandy to Indians who were husking corn for him, 
 during a revel they had with it one of them fired a gun at 
 midnight, which led a party of white men wantonly to fire 
 upon and kill several of them. The next day, the In- 
 
And the Region Around. 37 
 
 dians near there seized thirteen prisoners ; open war fol- 
 lowed ; five hundred Indians surrounded the fort, so that 
 for three weeks no one dared go outside of it ; houses, 
 barns, and crops were burned, cattle and horses killed ; 
 and, failing in their efforts to set fire to the fort, the In- 
 dians burned eight or ten captives at the stake. In Ofto- 
 ber. Governor Stuyvesant, with one hundred and sixty- 
 five soldiers, and as many Indians, came to Kingston ; but 
 the hostile Indians having disappeared, and the country 
 being flooded by rains, he returned to New York. Mo- 
 hawk and Mohican Indians, from Albany, by their media- 
 tion, secured a truce, and the giving up of two prisoners 
 only, but no permanent peace. A treaty was made with 
 them, however. May 25, 1660. 
 
 After this the people were so free from fear, that they 
 left the gates of their fort open day and night. In June, 
 1663, the Indians in great numbers came into the fort at 
 Wiltwyck, apparently to trade, while most of the settlers 
 were busy out of doors. At a signal, before agreed upon, 
 the Indians attacked the whites, who, soon rallying from 
 their panic, and led on by Thomas Chambers, at length 
 drove the Indians from the fort. Eighteen whites were 
 killed and forty-two were carried away prisoners. The 
 out-settlements were all destroyed ; and, in the war which 
 followed, the Ulster Indians were nearly exterminated. 
 The valley of the Wall. Kill was then discovered, and in 
 1677 a colony of French Huguenots settled there, in what 
 is now the town of New Paltz. 
 
 After the peace of 1660, the Direftor-General of New 
 Netherlands sent eleven Indian prisoners to Curacoa, an 
 island near the northern coast of South America, to be 
 sold there as slaves. This outrage led to the treacherous 
 and bloody attack on the fort, the slaughter there, the carry- 
 ing away of numerous captives, and the savage and destruc- 
 
38 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 live war which followed. Nine days after the retreat of 
 the Indians from the attack on Wiltwyck, in June, 1663, a 
 reinforcement of forty men, under Ensign Nyssen, arrived 
 and relieved the fort Captain Krygier, or Kreiger, with 
 a cannon and two hundred and ten men, pursued the 
 Indians to their forts, and destroyed their grain. In Sep- 
 tember, another expedition surprised an Indian fort thirty- 
 six miles southwest of Wiltwyck, killed the chief and 
 twenty others, and freed twenty-two captives. Twenty- 
 seven Indians were killed, besides those who were shot in 
 swimming the creek, and their bodies swept away by the 
 stream ; and six Dutch were killed. Skins of bear, deer, 
 elk, and other animals, and blankets enough, were taken 
 to load a shallop. Twenty pounds of powder and eighty- 
 five guns were destroyed. Twenty-two whites were set at 
 liberty, and thirteen or fourteen Indians were taken pris- 
 oners, twelve of whom were sent to New Amsterdam as 
 prisoners. Another expedition soon after made clean work 
 with the crops of the Indians, while the materials of their 
 palisades and wigwams were piled up and burned. The 
 Indians were thus thoroughly scattered and subdued. 
 Late in autumn they sued for peace, and restored all the 
 remaining captives but three. 
 
 Krygier, who led the expedition against the Indians, 
 fought with and nearly exterminated them, September 7, 
 
 1663, was Burgomaster in New Amsterdam, now New 
 York, and died in Niskayuna, on the Mohawk, in 1713. 
 There were then left but twenty-seven or twenty-eight 
 Indian warriors, fifteen or sixteen squaws, and a few chil- 
 dren, without houses or huts. A treaty was then made 
 with the Esopus Indians by Governor Stuyvesant, May i6, 
 
 1664, by which their lands and forts in that region were 
 ceded to the Dutch, while they had a new fort more remote. 
 They were permitted to sell meat and Indian-corn at Ron- 
 
And the Region Around. 39 
 
 dout, provided but three canoes came at a time, and they 
 sent a flag of truce before them. The forts which were 
 destroyed were on Shawangunk Hill, in the town of the 
 same name, in the southern part "of Ulster County. 
 
 In a work entitled " New York in 1695," by Rev. John 
 Miller, dedicated to the Bishop of London, and first pub- 
 lished in that city in 1843, we read as follows : " The places 
 of strength are chiefly three, — New York, Albany, and 
 Kingston. In Ulster County is a Dutch Calvinist Church, 
 in Kingston, for five or six towns. A minister is to come " 
 — that is, I suppose, from Holland — " his books brought, 
 but he missed his passage." There were then three hun- 
 dred families in the county, mostly Dutch, with some Eng- 
 lish and French. The Dutch Church, in Kingston, was 
 organized May 30, 1658. There are now eighteen churches 
 in the township. 
 
 Allusion has been made to the settlement of a colony 
 of Huguenots, or French Protestants, at New Paltz, in 
 Ulster County, in 1677. As to the origin and meaning of 
 the word " Huguenot," ten different opinions have been 
 advanced. Browning,, in his History of the Huguenots, 
 claims that it came from Eignot, derived from the Ger- 
 man word Eidgenossen, which means Confederates, there 
 having been a party thus named in Geneva. D'Aubignd, 
 in his History of the Reformation, holds that the word 
 owes its precise present form to a prominent Protestant 
 republican leader in Geneva, named Hugues. Before the 
 Reformation, the word " Huguenot " had a purely political 
 meaning, being applied to those alone who favored civil 
 independence. After the Reformation, the enemies of 
 the Protestants in France applied this term to them in 
 the way of reproach, as imputing to them a foreign, 
 republican, heretical origin, just as the Puritans, Metho- 
 dists, Quakers, and others were so named at first by 
 
40 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 their enemies. Most of the Huguenots of Ulster County 
 came to America some twelve or fifteen years before the 
 revocation of the Edift of Nantes, which took place in 
 1685, the Edift having been in force about ninety years. 
 During this period of comparative peace and comfort to 
 the Protestants in France, they still suiFered much from 
 oppression and wrong, especially after the death of Crom- 
 well, in 1658, whose strong hand, iron will, and manly, 
 sympathizing heart had made him a tower of strength 
 and defense to Protestants throughout the world, and the 
 terror and scourge of their enemies. The Cardinal Ma- 
 zarin, too, in France, a mild and tolerant man, of great 
 influence with the King, died three years after Cromwell, 
 so that thus the Huguenots suffered more than-before. 
 
 As early as 1625-, some French Protestants came to 
 New York ; but these did not go to Ulster County. Oth- 
 ers, at different times, settled at New Rochelle, in West- 
 chester County ; in Charleston, South Carolina ; in Mas- 
 sachusetts ; and elsewhere. Those who afterwards came 
 to Ulster County, went first to Germany, where they 
 found a home in the Palatinate, on the Rhine, and hence 
 they called their first settlement in America De Paltz, or 
 as it is now called, Paltz, or New Paltz. 
 
 It has already been stated that the valley of the Wal- 
 kill, which lies along the banks of a creek of that name, 
 was first discovered in the destruftive war against the 
 Indians in 1663, during which they were nearly extermi- 
 nated. A few, however, remained, and, as elsewhere 
 stated, had a new fort more remote from the white set- 
 tlements than their old ones, and were permitted, in 
 small numbers at a time, to come to Rondout to trade. 
 About twelve years after this war, mostly in July, 1675, 
 many of the Huguenots of Ulster landed at Wiltwyck, 
 where they were kindly welcomed by the Dutch, as the 
 
And the Region Around. 41* 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers of New England, when they first left 
 Great Britain, found a home among the same people in 
 Holland. These Huguenots lived in an unsettled state 
 near where they first landed about two years, and their 
 leading men among them, known as the "twelve pa- 
 tentees," purchased of the Indians, in 1677, a large traft 
 of land opposite Poughkeepsie, where is now the fertile 
 and pleasant town of New Paltz. 
 
 Some Huguenots came to Kingston as early as 1660. 
 To one of these and his family the narrative which follows 
 relates, in connedlion with the massacre, captivity, and war 
 of 1663. The tradition in the case is indeed a singular 
 one ; and yet so full and minute is it, and coming down to 
 us, as it does, through generations of truthful and devout 
 Christian men, and withal of a nature so peculiarly tender 
 and dramatic, that one can hardly believe that it is not 
 essentially true, whatever minor errors of time and place 
 or circumstances there may be in connexion with it. 
 
 I therefore give the tradition referred to above as it is 
 found in one of a well-written and instruftive series of 
 articles, on the Huguenots of Ulster County, in the " Chris- 
 tian Intelligencer" of 1842, vol. xvi., No. 42. 
 
 The tradition is, in substance, as follows : Catherine 
 Lefever, wife of Louis Dubois, and three of their children 
 were taken captive by the Indians, and carried away. 
 Some time afterwards, a friendly Indian came to Kingston, 
 and told where the captives could be found. His direc- 
 tions were, to follow the Rondout Creek, and then the 
 Walkill, and after that a third stream, on the banks of 
 which the Indians were then encamped ; and as they in- 
 tended to remove near to some white settlements, where 
 they did not wish to have prisoners with them, they were 
 about to put their captives to death. The Indian camp is 
 said to have been about one hundred yards fi-om the east 
 
42 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 bank of the Shawangunk Creek, in the town of the same 
 name, and one mile from where the Reformed Dutch Church 
 in that town now stands. 
 
 Thus warned and guided, Dubois and a company of 
 friends, with guns, knapsacks, dogs, and provisions, 
 marched through the forest, a distance of twenty-six miles, 
 to the place pointed out to them. Before reaching the 
 camp, Dubois came suddenly upon an Indian, who, in at- 
 tempting to shoot him, missed the notch in the end of his 
 arrow, as he brought it to his bowstring, when Dubois, 
 springing upon him, killed him with his sword without 
 alarming the other Indians. They put off the attack on 
 the Indian camp until evening, with a view then to rush 
 upon it with a loud shout, thus givinjg the impression that 
 their party was a large one. As the dogs ranged ahead, 
 and the Indians saw them, they cried "White Man's Dogs," 
 and hearing the shouts of the men, they fled. The cap- 
 tives, alarmed with the rest, and not knowing who they 
 were that were coming upon them, fled with the Indians, 
 until Dubois pursuing his wife, and calling her by name, 
 she with the others turned back. When they approached 
 the camp, Mrs. Dubois had been placed by the Indians on 
 a pile of wood, to be burned at the stake, and, preparatory 
 to this, was singing of the captive Jews, as, by the rivers 
 of Babylon, they hung their harps upon the willows, 
 and sat themselves down and wept. And we may well 
 suppose, that with the eye of faith looking upwards to a 
 heavenly home, which then seemed so near, and to which, 
 as she thought, she was so soon to ascend, her music, in 
 those forest depths, had in it heavenly harmony, softened 
 and enriched by the tender love and sympathies of eartli. 
 Nor is it strange, that even savage hearts, softened, 
 charmed, and awed by such music, and by such high- 
 wrought and heroic fortitude in the near view of death, 
 
And the Region Around. 43 
 
 should have urged her again and again to sing her song 
 of plaintive melody, and of high and holy hope and trust 
 in God, until, when she looked not for it, that deliverance 
 came, which, but for her continued singing, would have 
 been too late. There is indeed much of unwritten his- 
 tory, quite as true and of far higher interest than are 
 large portions of that which the world believes, and over 
 which it joys or weeps. 
 
 It is said, that the knowledge gained of the country 
 around, by those who went on this expedition, led the 
 Huguenots to selefl the banks of the Walkill as their 
 future home, and to settle there. The deed given by the 
 Indians to the Huguenots, of the lands at New Paltz, is 
 dated May 2, 1677, for which the Indians received forty 
 axes and the same number of kettles, forty adzes, forty 
 shirts, four hundred strings of white beads, three hundred 
 strings of black beads, fifty pairs of stockings, one hundred 
 bars of lead, one keg of powder, one hundred knives, four 
 quarter-casks of wine, forty jars, sixty splitting or cleaving 
 knives, sixty blankets, one hundred needles, one hundred 
 awls, and one clean pipe. The land thus purchased was 
 twelve miles square, and extended from the Shawangunk 
 Mountains to Hudson River. Some families removed 
 there early in 1677. 
 
 The Huguenots were three days in removing through 
 the forest from Kingston to New Paltz, a distance of six- 
 teen miles. The Eltinges, of New Paltz, are said to have 
 been of Dutch descent. One of the Eltinges of Kingston, 
 having married a Dubois, removed with his wife's relatives 
 to their new home. 
 
 Edmund Eltinge, Esq., in the " Ulster County Histori- 
 cal CoUeftion for i860," gives the maiden name of the 
 wife of Louis Dubois as Catherine Blanshan, instead of 
 Catherine Lefever, and states that three women, wives of 
 
44 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 residents of Kingston, were with her when she was freed 
 from captivity. He says that the Indian who gave direc- 
 tions as to where to find the captives was a man of some 
 standing among them, who had been taken captive by the 
 whites, and was detained by them as a hostage while Du- 
 bois and his friends were absent. He further states that 
 the Psalm sung was the 137th in the Dutch colleftion, 
 beginning thus : — 
 
 '* By Babel's stream the captives sate, 
 And wept for Zion's hapless fate ; 
 Useless their haips on willows hung 
 While foes required a sacred song." 
 
 As connefted with the tradition above, we find in the 
 list of captives taken by the Indians in June, 1663, the 
 wife and three children of Louis Dubois. After that, a 
 Wappinger Indian, who was a prisoner, was asked if he 
 would guide them to the fort of the Esopus Indians ; and 
 he answered " Yes." As for six months or more after the 
 massacre, prisoners, in small numbers at a time, were in 
 various ways often recovered from the Indians, as appears 
 from Krugier's Journal and other early records, there 
 seems to be nothing but the silence of early written his- 
 tory to disprove the tradition above. As peace was not 
 finally made with the Indians until May 16, 1664, nearly a 
 year after the massacre, during all the autumn of 1663, 
 the Indians were at times hovering around Kingston, and 
 soldiers went to the fields with laborers to proteft them 
 in securing the crops. Under date of Oftober 11, we 
 read that Louis the Walloon, that is. Huguenot (meaning 
 Dubois), went for his oxen, when three Indians attacked 
 him, one of whom slightly wounded him with an arrow, 
 and tried to seize him, but Dubois struck him with a piece 
 
And the Region Around. 45 
 
 of paling, and escaped through the kill or creek. Dubois 
 was afterwards first elder of the church in New Paltz. 
 
 It is said that the family name of Dubois at one time 
 was very near becoming extinct in Ulster County, inas- 
 much as there was in New Paltz but one family of that 
 name, in which, though there were seven daughters, there 
 was but one son. As also there was then no church 
 nearer than Kingston, a distance of sixteen miles, children 
 were taken there to be baptized. It is related that as the 
 father and mother of this only son were returning from 
 his baptism, their team and sleigh, in crossing the creek, 
 broke through the ice, and they, with their horses, were 
 drowned ; the mother having thrown her infant on a float- 
 ing cake of ice, from which it was rescued, and its life 
 saved. In 1744, Johannes Decker, of Shawangunk (pro- 
 nounced Shon-gum), while going to or returning from the 
 baptism of his child, was lost, with his horses and a negro 
 who came to help him, — his horses having broken through 
 the ice, — while his wife and child were saved. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Stitt of Kingston, for many years pastor of 
 the church referred to above, relates in the " Ulster County 
 Historical Collections " that it was organized January 22, 
 1683, by Rev. Peter Duelle, under the title of the con- 
 gregation of the " Walloon Protestant Church." The Rev. 
 Peter Pierret came there in 1697, and received twenty 
 pounds yearly from the colonial government. The preach- 
 ing and church records were at first in French. From 
 1700 to 1730 there was a transition from French to 
 Dutch, there being then no regular preaching, but Dutch 
 ministers came from Kingston and Albany to baptize, 
 marry, and administer the Lord's Supper. In 1720 their 
 second church was built of stone. It was small, and had a 
 large window on each side, a steep, pointed roof, and a small 
 cupola on the top, where a horn was blown to call the 
 
46 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 people to service. It is still standing, and is used as a school- 
 house. In due time the preaching became EngUsh instead 
 of Dutch. Rev. Dr. Peltz, the present pastor of the church, 
 writes me that " the church records are in French, Dutch, 
 and English ; that, as the early dwellers there did not 
 cheat the Indians, they had no wars with them ; that 
 they never let a lawyer live among them (though they 
 would have tolerated witches and Quakers), and refused to 
 have the county seat there because of its associations." 
 There are, we think, few flourishing towns of two thou- 
 sand inhabitants, which, on the ground of a regard for 
 the morality of the place, would have refused such an offer. 
 
 May 21, 1667, the Fox Hall Patent to a large trafi: of 
 land in the south part of Ulster County, discovered during 
 the Indian War of 1663, was issued to Thomas Chambers, 
 who had been aftive in that war. He had before lived on 
 a tra6l of land where Troy now is, which he had rented 
 from the Patroon, Van Rensselaer. He removed to Esopus 
 in 1652, where he acquired a large estate which he tried to 
 entail by will to his family, but it passed out of their pos- 
 session before the Revolutionary War. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War, the out-settlements in 
 Ulster County were much exposed to attacks by the In- 
 dians, and were most of them destroyed or abandoned. 
 The towns on the river, too, were all taken by the British ; 
 and, in 1 777, most of them were pillaged and burned. Gene- 
 ral Vaughan, with a force of three thousand men, was sent 
 up the river with a view to aid General Burgoyne. For ten 
 days after passing the Highlands, bis troops were employed 
 in plundering and burning the towns they took. Oftober 
 17, after plundering Kingston several hours, they burned 
 every house in it but one. These houses, however, like 
 
And the Region Around. 47 
 
 most of those early built by the Dutch, in the valley of the 
 Hudson, had strong, thick walls of stone, so that they suf- 
 fered but little from fire, and their woodwork was easily 
 replaced. The Provincial Congress and the State Legis- 
 lature held several sessions in Kingston during the war 
 and soon after, and the first Constitution of the State was 
 formed there. . The first State Convention adjourned from 
 Fishkill to Kingston on the approach of the British in 
 1777, and Oftober 7 of that year the State Legislature 
 in session was dispersed by the approach of Sir Henry Clin- 
 ton and the British troops. When Kingston was burned, 
 it was the third town in the State in size, elegance, and 
 wealth, New York and Albany alone being in advance 
 of it. 
 
 In 1778, two men named Andreson and Osterhout, of 
 Ulster County, were taken by the Indians. When within 
 one day's march of Niagara, Andreson relieved him- 
 self and his companion from their bonds at night when 
 the Indians were asleep. They killed the Indians, ex- 
 cept two squaws, who .escaped, and took the provisions, 
 spoils, and guns of the Indians, and returning some 
 four or five hundred miles through the woods, reached 
 home in seventeen days, killing game by the way 
 for food. They were much weakened and reduced by 
 hunger and fatigue, but greatly rejoiced at tlieir escape. 
 
 In May, 1779, Colonel Butler, with forty rangers, burned 
 four houses and five barns in Fantinekill, murdered six 
 persons, and three or four more were supposed to have 
 been burned in their houses. Colonel Van Cortland pur- 
 sued them, and twice came in sight of them as they were 
 crossing the tops of distant hills, but could not overtake 
 them. When he turned back from pursuing them, they 
 fell upon Woodstock, made a few prisoners, carried them 
 away to Canada, burned several houses, and committed 
 
48 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 other depredations. It was at this time, probably, that 
 Miller and Short, elsewhere spoken of in this work, were 
 carried away. 
 
 It is said that in the spring of 1780 an atrocious raid 
 was made by a party of Indians and tories, with a view to 
 seize Thomas and Johannes Jansen, wealthy men of Sha- 
 wangunk ; and that some of their negroes and neighbors 
 were made prisoners, a Miss Mack and her father, with a 
 young lady, on a visit from New York, killed, houses 
 plundered and barns burned. It is also stated that 
 some of the same party took the Snyders, of Saugerties, 
 prisoners ; but it will be seen from their narrative that 
 they were carried away before this raid against the Jansens. 
 
 In the town of Wawarsing, are peaks of the Catskill 
 Mountains, from two to three thousand feet high. A large 
 party of Indians and tories, under one Caldwell, appeared 
 in this town August 1 2, 1 78 1 . They had intended to attack 
 Napanock, but having learned that it was defended by a 
 cannon, they went to Wawarsing, where there was a stone 
 fort. Two men and a young woman discovered them before 
 they reached the fort, it being early in the morning ; and 
 the woman succeeded in closing the door of the fort just 
 in time to shut out the Indians. They found it dangerous 
 to make an attack, and the next day withdrew, having 
 burned five or six houses, several barns, and a gristmill, 
 and loaded themselves with spoil. A number of lives were 
 lost on both sides, and much property destroyed and car- 
 ried away. 
 
 John Vanderlyn, the celebrated painter, was born in 
 Kingston, late in the last century. Until near twenty-one 
 he was an apprentice to a wagon-painter. Some of his 
 drawings having been shown to Aaron Burr, while at a 
 tavern in the village, he sent him to Europe, where, in 
 
And the Region Around. 49 
 
 1808, he received a gold medal, ofTered by the Emperor 
 Napoleon for the best original piiSlure, at the exhibition of 
 the Louvre, though twelve hundred paintings were exhibit- 
 ed by European artists. This painting was "Marius on 
 the Ruins of Carthage," now in the possession of Bishop 
 Kip, of California. In 1842, he painted the "Landing of 
 Columbus," now in one of the panels of the Rotunda of the 
 Capitol at Washington, for which he received twelve thous- 
 and dollars. It is inferior to his earlier works. He was then 
 old and broken in spirits. He died in poverty in Kingston, 
 in 1850, where he was buried in the Wiltwyck Cemetery. 
 
 The Delaware and Hudson Canal, which brings vast 
 quantities of coal from the mines at Carbondale, Pennsyl- 
 vania, enters the Hudson River at Rondout, from whence 
 it is shipped to all parts of the United States. In the 
 year 1818, water-limestone was discovered by accident 
 on the line of the Erie Canal by an engineer named 
 White, who was employed there ; and it was afterwards 
 found in large quantities along the line of the Delaware and 
 Hudson Canal (about the time it was commenced), from 
 Rondout, to some twenty miles along and near the line of 
 the canal. The manufafture of water cement now em- 
 ploys one thousand men and one million dollars of capital 
 In 1859, there were fifteen manufadlories of cement in the 
 county. One company at Rondout manufaftures seventy 
 thousand barrels of cement annually, and another ninety 
 thousand. Five manufaftories in the town of Rosendale 
 produce each year two hundred and forty-one thousand 
 barrels, one hundred and twenty-five thousand of which 
 are manufaftured by a single company. The cement 
 trade in the county amounts to two hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars a year. The Newark Lime and Cement 
 Manufafliuring Company, organized in 1848, has two 
 4 
 
50 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 manufaftories in Newark, New Jersey, and one at Ron- 
 dout, where the limestone is quarried, producing seven 
 hundred and fifty thousand barrels annually. 
 
 A lead-mine was worked near EUenville, without profit, 
 more than forty years since ; and another was opened in 
 1837, in the south part of the county, six hundred or 
 seven hundred feet above the valley below. Millstones 
 of an excellent quality were formerly quarried in large 
 quantities ten miles from the river, and small ones are 
 still made there. In Marlborough, fifteen thousand wheel- 
 barrows and forty thousand dollars' worth of agricultural 
 implements are manufaftured annually. In the town of 
 Olive are four large tanneries, one of which produces 
 seventy thousand sides of oak-tanned sole-leather annu- 
 ally. Shokan Point in this town is three thousand one 
 hundred feet high. In the town of Shandaken two hun- 
 dred thousand sides of leather are manufaflured annually. 
 
 In Saugerties, the Ulster Iron Works employ three 
 hundred men, night and day, and manufafture six thou- 
 sand tons of bar and hoop iron annually. A paper-mill 
 employs one hundred and twenty-five hands, and pro- 
 duces six hundred tons of paper annually. The White- 
 Lead Works employ forty men, and manufacture fifteen 
 hundred tons of paint each year. About two thousand 
 men are employed in this town in quarrying, dressing, and 
 shipping stone, and about five hundred thousand dollars' 
 worth of stone is annually shipped from Glasco, Maiden, 
 and Saugerties, all of them ports in the town of Sau- 
 gerties. Large quantities of gunpowder are also manu- 
 faftured in Saugerties and Kiskatom. The old Dutch 
 church, built of stone in 1732, in Kaatsban, in the north 
 part of Saugerties, and the ancient oaks near it, are 
 objefts of peculiar, antique attraftiveness and interest. 
 
 Ulster County contains 1204 square miles, and in i860 
 
And the Region Around. 51 
 
 produced 847,549 bushels of grain, 64,795 tons of hay, 
 134,539 bushels of potatoes, 397,754 bushels of apples, 
 1,669,631, pounds of butter, and 520 pounds of cheese. 
 Population of the county, 67,936, there being 1,576 more 
 males than females in this number. 
 
52 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Revolutionary Captives. — Frederick Schermerhom. — His Residence.— Josiah 
 Priest. — His Writings. — The Stropes. — Scheimerhorn at RouDdtop. — In- 
 dians and Tories. — Strope and his Wife Killed and Scalped. — Escape of 
 Jacob Schennerhom's Wife and Children. — The House Burned. — Route of 
 the Indians. — Vain Pursuit of Them. — Captives at Night. — Scalps Dried. — 
 An Elk Shot. — A Murdered Man. — The Susquehanna. — Voyage on it.— 
 Dead Fish. — Troga Point — SulHvan's Expedition. — Murphy. — Unburied 
 Bones. — Marks of Cannon shot — Genesee River. — Hunger— Food. — Tona- 
 wanda Creek. — Warwhoops. — Premium on Scalps. — Running the Gaunt- 
 let—Reach Niagara. — Schermerhom Enlists in the Army.— Bounty Money. 
 Doxtater's Raid. — Currytown. — Prisoners. — A Fright — Colonel Willet — ^A 
 Defeat — Return to Niagara. — A Captive Boy. — His History. — Deivendorf 
 Scalped and yet Lived. — Tories with Doxtater. — Schermerhom in Michi- 
 gan. — His Release and Retum Home. — His Family. — His Deatli. — His 
 Tory Captors. — Priest*s Writings. — The Scfaermerhoms on the Mohawk. — 
 Careful Scalping. 
 
 THE narrative of the seizure and the captivity 
 among the Indians and the British in Canada, 
 of Frederick Schermerhom, of Catskill, during 
 the Revolutionary War, is here given as interesting mat- 
 ter of history, and as showing how those who have gone 
 before us were exposed to fearful danger of captivity and 
 death in their efforts to secure and hand down to their 
 posterity the rich civil and religious blessings which we, 
 in peace and quiet, so securely and happily enjoy. Scher- 
 merhom*s parents lived where his grandson, Frederick 
 Barringer, now resides, about two miles west of Catskill. 
 He has two daughters still living in Kiskatom, a son and 
 daughter in Cairo, and a daughter in one of the Western 
 States. 
 
Attd the Region Around. 53 
 
 I give below the substance of the narrative, compiled 
 by Josiah Priest, formerly residing in Cairo, but who re- 
 moved to Albany, and for some years travelled through 
 this region selling books, several of which he himself 
 wrote. He has a son who is a physician in Windham, 
 in this county. 
 
 The titlepage of the pamphlet from which I copy is as 
 follows : " The Low Dutch Prisoners ; being an Ac- 
 count of the Capture of Frederick Schermerhorn, when a 
 lad of seventeen years old, by a party of Mohawks, in the 
 time of the Revolution, who took him near the famous 
 Mountain House, in the State of New York, and of his 
 sufferings through the wilderness with the Indians. Also 
 the story of the hermit found in a cave of the Allegany 
 Mountains, and of the Miners of the Minisink, with some 
 other curious matters, which the reader may consider use- 
 ful as well as interesting. 
 
 " ' The glare of lire, its smoke and flame. 
 Are hues which tinge the savage name ; 
 The screech, the groan, the cry of fear, 
 Are sounds that please the Indian ear ; 
 For thus their ancient gory creed 
 Pronounced the pris'ner sure should bleed. 
 And through death's gate in pain must go, 
 To meet the awful Manito.' " * 
 
 The Strope family, mentioned below, were the first set- 
 tlers in their neighborhood, and lived on the Shingle 
 Kill Creek, some forty rods east of the Roundtop Method- 
 ist Church, and ten or twelve rods south of the road. 
 
 The pamphlet from which I copy is in oftavo form, with 
 thirty-two closely printed pages, and closes with an alle- 
 
 * " By Josiah Priest. Author of several works, pamphlets, &c., never befois 
 published. Copyright Price 18% cents. Albany, 1839." 
 
54 The CatskUl Mountains, 
 
 gory styled " The Plains of Matrimony," and the following 
 
 " The low Dutch captive boy amid the forest wild. 
 With hunger, grief, and sorrow, when a little child, 
 The Indian Minisink, and settler's tale is told ; 
 The hermit of the rock, the miners and their gold : 
 But soon a longer story, as wonderfiil and true. 
 The press from off its bosom will give to public view. 
 In which the pangs of war, of love, and deep distress. 
 Shall thrill the reader's heart, amid a wilderness." 
 
 Another work published by Mr. Priest was " Stories of 
 Early Settlers," a copy of which I met with in the State 
 Library in Albany. This book contains a singular collec- 
 tion of narratives of the hardships and adventures of the 
 early emigrants in the region north and west of Catskill. 
 The hermit found in a cave of the Alleghany Mountains, 
 spoken of above, or one much like him, figures in Dr. 
 Murdoch's " Dutch Dominie of the Catskills." 
 
 The parents of Frederick Schermerhorn came to the 
 place where Mr. Barringer now lives, in 1758, and there 
 made them a home in the woods, where their son lived 
 with them until he was taken captive by the Indians. He 
 is called by Mr. Priest " The Low Dutch Prisoner," be- 
 cause his ancestors came from Holland, and hence were 
 known as Low Dutch, while emigrants from Germany are 
 called High Dutch. A brother of Frederick Schermer- 
 horn had married a daughter of Mr. Strope, living near 
 the Roundtop, as described above, and Frederick was sent 
 there to obtain the aid of his brother in driving some sheep 
 from Shingle Kill, now Cairo, where there was then but 
 one house, to where their father then lived, near where 
 Skinneman's or Schuneman's Bridge was afterwards built 
 over the Catskill Creek. 
 
 The sun was about two hours high when the boy left 
 
And the Region Around. 55 
 
 home, which gave him time to ride eight miles to Strope's 
 before dark. His large bear-dog, his usual attendant when 
 he went from home, refused to follow him, and howled after 
 him when he left, as if to warn him of danger ; having, it 
 may be, seen the Indians in the woods, and been frightened 
 by their firing at him. This was regarded as an ill omen, 
 and served to depress the feelings of the boy. Before 
 sunrise the next morning he heard, in his sleeping-room 
 at Strope's, the screams of his sister-in-law, apparently at 
 some distance from the house, she and her parents having 
 risen before him. This was caused by the barking of 
 Strope's dog, which had run towards a swamp near by, 
 where the young woman saw in the woods a party of 
 Indians painted and armed approaching the house. Strope 
 had gone to his field to work, but saw the Indians going 
 from their place of ambush, where they had spent the 
 night, towards his house. It is thought that at first the 
 Indians only intended to take and kill a son of Strope's, 
 named Bastayon, who was then absent in Saugerties, and 
 had some time before offended them by what he had done 
 to them near the Susquehanna River. He, with his wife 
 and family, had been taken captive there by the Indians, 
 near the Otego Creek, when he basely fled, leaving his 
 family behind him, and, as is supposed, stealing from the 
 Indians a choice rifle, a tomahawk, ammunition, and other 
 articles of value. 
 
 The boy, Schermerhorn, was called suddenly from his 
 bed, by his sister-in-law, who cried to him that the Indians 
 were just upon them. At first they seemed quite friendly, 
 shaking hands with every one, and saying, " How do, how 
 do," asking for Bastayon, intending to plunder the house, 
 but not to kill any one. They first drew the charge from 
 Strope's gun, which hung on pegs, on a beam of the 
 chamber floor, which was done quickly, through fear of 
 
56 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the Esopus rangers, a band of guerillas, who made short 
 work with Indians and tories when they caught them. 
 Strope, being a loyalist or tory, did not much fear the 
 Indians, when he saw them going towards his house ; 
 though he did not like to see among them one named 
 Wampehassee, whom, in times past while hunting near his 
 house, he had knocked down and kicked out of doors for 
 drunkenness and impudence, a kind of personal attention 
 an Indian is not apt to forget. Before Mr. Strope reached 
 the house, they had seized several articles of clothing ; 
 and as Mrs. Strope, who was fearless and strong, stoutly 
 resisted them, they handled her roughly. Soon one of 
 the Indians, with a blow of his hatchet, broke in the lid 
 of a chest, in which the linen of the family was kept. 
 Drawing a long piece of new linen around the room, he 
 said, " Make Indian good shirt." Mrs. Strope attacked 
 him, saying, " Dat ish Bastayon's peace of de linens." 
 Hearing this, the Indian said, "Me hate Bastayon, me 
 have good shirt now." While the old lady and the Indian 
 were pulling the cloth different ways, young Schermer- 
 horn said to her, " Vor Got's sake, let dem half vat dey 
 vills, or you may lose your Hfe." She would not yield, 
 however ; and soon the Indian killed her by a blow on 
 her head with his tomahawk. At this moment Mr. 
 Strope came in, and seeing what was done, rushed, for- 
 ward, with uplifted hands, and cried, " Cot Almighty ! " 
 when the same Indian named above killed him also with 
 a blow of his tomahawk. He then scalped them, by cut- 
 ting the skin around their heads, when seizing it with his 
 teeth, he placed his foot on their breasts, and thus tore 
 off their scalps. 
 
 When this had been done, the Indian seized young 
 Schermerhorn by the shoulder, and said, " You go me ? " 
 to which the boy replied, " Yaw, yaw : I will." 
 
And the Region Around. 57 
 
 As the wife of Jacob Schermerhorn, Strope's daughter, 
 saw the Indians come towards the house, she quickly 
 seized and dressed her two children, who were in bed, 
 one an infant, and the other two years old, and left the 
 house, after the Indians had entered it ; and calling after 
 her two older children, who were playing near the house, 
 she hastily fled, and hid them and herself in a field of tall 
 rye not far from the house. Soon she heard the sound of 
 the flames of the fire which the Indians had kindled to 
 destroy the house, and saw them moving off, heavily laden 
 with plunder, and with the boy in their midst. Waiting 
 until the Indians were out of sight, fearing to remain 
 where she was, lest the Indians should return, as also to 
 take the path to Shingle Kill, where, too, she might meet 
 them, she resolved to go through the woods, following the 
 course of the Kiskatom Creek, to the house of one Tim- 
 merman, who lived near its mouth, some five miles dis- 
 tant, where she arrived near night the same day. 
 
 The day before these murders, her husband, Jacob 
 Schermerhorn, had gone on horseback to Wynkoop's 
 Mill, on the Kiskatom Creek, and did not return until the 
 house was burned ; and he saw there, among the smoking 
 ruins, the bones of two human beings, not knowing but 
 that his wife might be one of them, until he found her, 
 and thus learned what had taken place. Had he returned 
 half an hour sooner, he too would have been taken and 
 probably killed. Having left his bag of meal in the barn, 
 where his brother's horse was, he went to a small fort, 
 called Pasamacoosick, between Catskill and Cairo. Hav- 
 ing told what had happened, there came together the 
 next day a large company of men, from all the region 
 around, with provisions and ammunition, who, after a 
 careful and diligent search, could find no traces of the 
 Indians' retreat. Had they come together a day sooner. 
 
■58 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 they might have found and killed them. The bones of 
 those murdered were buried, and Jacob's wife was found 
 at Timmerman's. 
 
 AS young Schermerhorn did" not return, his father, 
 strongly urged by his wife, the next day mounted a horse, 
 left home, and chanced to meet his son Jacob on the way 
 to the fort, and learned from him what had taken place. 
 Returning home, he told the sad tale to his wife, both of 
 them being filled with anxiety and fear for the fate of 
 their son. A year or so after this, a letter reached them, 
 by means of a tory, through whose aid it was sent to 
 them, informing them as to what had happened to him, 
 and where he was. 
 
 The Indians, after securing their spoil, crossed the 
 mountains through Hunter, some miles west of where 
 the Mountain House now is. On reaching the top of the 
 mountain, they took from the boy his shoes, which were 
 new, giving him an old pair of moccasins in their place, 
 and his hat, which was a good one, leaving him with no 
 covering for his head during the whole of his long jour- 
 ney. There were four Indians, who marched with the 
 boy in their midst, so that they could easily seize or kill 
 him, should he attempt to escape. With a view to safety, 
 they went by the wildest and most difficult route, until 
 near night they came to a swampy region, near the head 
 of the Schoharie Creek, where they encamped. From 
 the house of a tory near by, the Indians obtained milk 
 and meal, of which they made pudding for their supper, 
 kindling a fire with the flash of a gun, and moss, and 
 some Continental paper money, taken from their prison- 
 er, at the same time making sport of the Continental Con- 
 gress. The boy was bound, for the night, by a cord, 
 passing round each arm, at the elbow, and around his 
 body, each end of which was fastened to the arm of an 
 
And the Region Around. 59 
 
 Indian on either side of him, between whom he slept. 
 This was done for the three first nights, when having 
 gone so far from his home that they did not fear that he 
 would try to return, they then left him at liberty. 
 
 Their plan was to reach the Delaware River, follow it 
 for some distance, then cross to the Susquehanna, and 
 from thence travel on to the West. As the weather was 
 hot, and Schermerhorn complained of the headache, the 
 Indian flourished his tomahawk around the boy's head, 
 saying, " This good for headache," which cured him of all 
 disposition to complain of the headache in the future. 
 During a heavy rain, they built a covering of bark, near 
 a warm fire, by means of which they were thoroughly 
 dried. Here one of the Indians made two hoops of twigs, 
 on which he stretched the scalps of Mr. and Mrs. Strope, 
 to dry them, and then making a smaller one, as if for 
 Frederick's scalp, he suddenly raised him to his feet by 
 his hair, and, with a horrid yell, drew his finger around 
 his head, as if about to pass his knife there and scalp 
 him, when the boy was so overcome with fear that he 
 fell to the ground as if he had been shot ; whereupon the 
 Indians were so amused that they burst into fits of laugh- 
 ter, yelling and rolling on the ground for joy. 
 
 About noon the third day, one of the Indians shot a 
 large elk, which they skinned ; and, boiling the flesh, they 
 pressed it into small balls to dry and preserve it, as they 
 had no salt, while of the liver and fat they made a great 
 feast. The fourth day they came to the Delaware River, 
 where they spent two days, and made a bark canoe large 
 enough to carry their party of five persons and their bag- 
 gage. They then took the boy's coat from him, giving 
 him a shirt of tow cloth in its place, which they had taken 
 a few days before from the body of a man whom they had 
 murdered near the Hudson River, in the Imbought just 
 
6o The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 below Catskill. The shirt was quite bloody, and had the 
 initials of its former owner worked in it with thread. 
 These Indians belonged to a party which had been sent 
 out from Fort Niagara by Guy Johnston, who passed by 
 way of the Genesee country to the Chemung, following 
 it to its entrance into tlie Susquehanna at Tioga Point, 
 from whence they had gone east to the Hudson River, 
 where they had killed the man referred to above. In 
 passing rapidly down the river in the canoe, the banks 
 were covered with dead shad, which, owing to the low 
 water and the great heat, had died while returning from 
 leaving their spawn high up the river. Wild ducks were 
 also met with in great numbers, rearing their young, which 
 could be taken alive by hand from the water, having never 
 been frightened by men. 
 
 In less than two days, they had gone as far down the 
 river as they wished to go, where they spent a night ; and, 
 having concealed their canoe, they took their packs and 
 travelled for a hundred miles or more through the woods to 
 Tioga Point, two hundred miles from where they had start- 
 ed, and had yet two hundred miles or more to go before 
 they would reach Fort Niagara. The boy had a heavy 
 pack, and, bareheaded and barefooted, travelled through 
 the rough, thorny woods. Having crossed the Susque- 
 hanna at a shallow place, they struck the war-path of Gen- 
 eral Sullivan, who, a year or two before, had defeated the 
 Indians of the Genesee and Chemung country, and killed 
 many of them. In their march they came to a place where 
 a scouting party, sent out by Sullivan, had fallen into an 
 ambush and were taken by the Indians, with the excep- 
 tion of the famous Murphy, of Schoharie, known as " The 
 Indian Killer," who is said to have killed more Indians 
 during the Revolutionary War of seven years than any 
 other man in the country, and who died in peace years 
 
And ttte Region Around. 6i 
 
 after its close. The bones of these captives, bleaching on 
 the ground, were pointed out to the boy by the Indians, 
 who said, " See Kankee bones." These captives were all 
 tomahawked by the Indians, as they had not time to tor- 
 ture them, and their bodies were left to be devoured by 
 beasts of prey. When these twenty-three captives had 
 been killed, the Indians all pursued Murphy, but could 
 not take him, he in his flight having hid himself under a 
 large log by drawing bark and brush around hjm, where 
 the Indians passed direftly over him, loudly yelling as they 
 went. At night he escaped to Sullivan's camp, with the 
 news of their sad misfortune. 
 
 During this part of their journey, the Indians, in many 
 places, pointed out to Schermerhorn where the cannon- 
 shot of Sullivan had cut off the limbs and bark of trees, 
 as he gave them grape and canister shot wherever he 
 found them, having in one place thus driven a party of 
 them over a precipice, where they were killed by the fall. 
 In the region of the Genesee River there were many In- 
 dians, who had returned there after their flight from Sul- 
 livan's invasion. There, according to custom, Schermer- 
 horn would have had to run the gauntlet between two 
 rows of old Indians, the squaws and Indian boys armed 
 with clubs and stones, and permitted to strike and kick the 
 running captive, had not the man who owned him so 
 dressed him and given him a gun, as to cause the Indians 
 to regard him as a friend instead of a captive prisoner. On 
 leaving the Genesee, they suffered from hunger much 
 more than before, living on roots and an herb which the 
 Indians pounded to a pumice, and, wrapping it in leaves, 
 baked it in hot ashes. 
 
 After a few days, they came to Tonawanda Creek, where 
 there was an Indian settlement. When they came near 
 to it, they gave one whoop to show the prisoner they had, 
 
62 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and two to make known the number of scalps ; for which, 
 at Fort Niagara, they received from the British officers a 
 reward of eight dollars for each scalp, concealing the fa6t 
 that they were taken from the friends instead of the 
 enemies of England. Here Schermerhorn was repeatedly 
 knocked down, and severely treated by Indians ; while 
 one whom he met with treated him kindly, and gave him 
 food and drink. From Tonawanda to Fort Niagara they 
 lived on herbs, roots, berries, squirrels, birds, and skunks, 
 having a hard journey of it, until they came where the In- 
 dians who were with Schermerhorn lived, and there they 
 obtained food. Here the boy met a firiendly old Indian, 
 who said that he had often eaten in his father's house ; 
 and hence treated him kindly. Near the fort, he had to 
 run the gauntlet for a distance of some ten rods, expe6ling 
 to be killed, but was not much injured. Having been 
 questioned by a clerk of Guy Johnston, as to the number 
 of the American forces, and other matters of which he 
 knew nothing, he was placed under the care of a squaw, 
 who had charge of the cooking department, and who 
 treated him with great kindness. The clothes taken from 
 himself and the Stropes he saw worn by the Indians and 
 a Tory in the fort. 
 
 As soon as Schermerhorn had somewhat recruited, and 
 regained his strength, the choice was given him of enlist- 
 ing as a soldier in the British army, or to go again with 
 the Indians. With much reluftance and grief, he at length 
 consented to enlist, thinking that thus he might escape 
 perpetual captivity among the cruel, filthy, hated Indians, 
 and have a chance of reaching his friends by flight, or at 
 the end of the war. Forty Spanish dollars were paid 
 to the Indian who captured him, this being the bounty 
 given by the government for every young man from the 
 colonies who enlisted as a soldier under the king. Dressed 
 
And tJte Region Around. 63 
 
 in a suit of blue, with white facings, he joined a company 
 called Foresters, under Guy Johnston, and thus he served 
 four years, or one year after the end o( the war, as he was 
 claimed as a British subjedt When he had been a soldier 
 for about a year, he went on an expedition under Lieuten- 
 ant Doxtater, a Dutchman from the Mohawk, a relative of 
 Butler, the savage companion of Brandt in the war. There 
 were in this company about fifty white men and one hun- 
 dred Indians, who so suffered from hunger that they had 
 to eat three or four packhorses they took with them. They 
 followed nearly the course which the Erie Canal now takes, 
 until they reached Currytown, now in Montgomery County, 
 south of the Mohawk River, where there was a fort, from 
 which they hoped to obtain plunder, prisoners, and scalps. 
 In their unexpefted approach to the place, the Indians 
 took as prisoners six men, who were working in their fields 
 with a negro boy and a small white girl. As they ap- 
 proached the fort, however, they were discovered, when 
 the men fled to the fort, and as many of the women as 
 could reach it. Many women and children took refuge in 
 a house near the fort, around which Doxtater placed a 
 guard for their proteftion, intending probably to carry 
 them off as prisoners. 
 
 The fort, however, was not attacked, nor did those in the 
 fort come out to fight ; so that the place was freely plun- 
 dered, and most of the buildings burned. Doxtater order- 
 ed Schermerhorn to set a certain barn on fire, but he re- 
 fused, saying : " I cannot find it in my heart to destroy the 
 property of my people." Schermerhorn here attempted to 
 make his escape and reach home ; but coming near a block- 
 house of the Americans, where he was in danger of being 
 shot by them, and fearing being discovered by the British 
 and Indians, who would have put him to death as a de- 
 serter, he therefore returned to his company, who soon left 
 
64 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the place in a fright, a Tory runner having informed them 
 that the enemy were near. Thus they left behind them 
 the women and children in the house. They turned their 
 course towards a small place named Tourbaugh, near 
 Cherry Valley, where they hoped to obtain prisoners, 
 horses, cattle, and provisions, but Colonel Willet, a famous 
 border warrior in the region of Schoharie and Otsego 
 counties, having heard of their movements, laid an ambush 
 for them, and after a fight of a few minutes put them to 
 flight, they having tomahawked and scalped their eight 
 prisoners, where their friends afterwards found their bodies, 
 and removed them. Doxtater and his party, having thus 
 lost all they had taken at Currytown, except a few horses, 
 which hunger compelled them to eat on their way back to 
 Fort Niagara, the party reached there, wretched and for- 
 lorn, with nothing to show but the eight scalps, one of 
 them of the little white girl they had taken. During the fight 
 with Willet, Schermerhorn had charge of Peter Quack- 
 enboss, a prisoner taken by the white men of the party ; 
 and hence his life was spared when those taken by the 
 Indians were scalped. Peter and his brother John were 
 captured while hunting deer, and, failing in attempts to 
 escape, returned to their home after the end of the war. 
 
 When Doxtater and his party left Fort Niagara, there 
 came with them the' wife of a noted chief who wished to 
 get a white boy to adopt, as she had no child. While at 
 the house in Currytown where the women and children 
 were, she snatched a fine white boy two years old from 
 the arms of his mother, and fled with it into the woods, 
 the mother screaming after it, but not being permitted to 
 follow and recover it. About a year after, this child was 
 at Fort Niagara dressed in Indian style, and much 
 caressed and loved by the Indians. In the year 1828, 
 there came a white man from among the western Indians, 
 
And the Region Around. 65 
 
 saying that he had been told that he was stolen when a 
 child from Schoharie, and that he came to seek his rela- 
 tives and early home. He went to Schoharie, Albany, 
 New York, and Washington, trying in vain to find his 
 friends. His age was then about fifty years ; and, had he 
 met with Schermerhorn, he would probably have suc- 
 ceeded in his search, and not been compelled to return 
 among his savage friends. His manners and habits, as 
 his mode of life bad been, were all Indian. His age and 
 all the circumstances of the case make it well-nigh certain 
 that he was the child stolen from the arms of its mother by 
 the wife of the Indian chief. The morning of Willet's fight 
 the Indians took a Dutch boy, by the name of Deivendorf, 
 about fourteen years of age, whom they stunned with a 
 blow on the head with a tomahawk, and scalped him, 
 leaving him for dead. He soon revived, however, so far 
 as to be able to crawl to a log near by, where on his knees 
 he lay over ft on his breast, the blood flowing down his 
 temples and forehead. When those pursuing the Indians 
 came near him and saw him, one, supposing him to be an 
 Indian, was on the point of shooting him, when a com- 
 panion struck his rifle, and thus the ball missed him. Mr. 
 Priest, the writer of the Life of Schermerhorn, from which 
 I have compiled this condensed sketch of nearly all the 
 fadts in the case, knew this Deivendorf, and had from him 
 the statement given above. He was a stout, healthy 
 man, with a large property, a good citizen, living near 
 where he was scalped, and bearing the marks of that 
 savage a£l. 
 
 Among the fifty white men who went with Doxtater, 
 who was himself from the region of the Mohawk, there 
 were several tories from the same part of the country, 
 who blacked and painted their faces like the Indians, that 
 they might not be known by their former neighbors. 
 5 
 
66 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 They advised Schermerhorn to do the same, but he refus- 
 ed, saying, " If I am to die in battle, let me die a white 
 man." After the return of those of the party who sur- 
 vived, Schermerhorn was sent as a member of a body- 
 guard of a Captain Dase, to Michigan, where he remained 
 until nearly a year after the close of the war, when he 
 returned to his parents, who were then living in the city of 
 Hudson. Ebenezer Beach for many years lived where 
 the Stropes were murdered, but none of his family are there 
 now. His brother, Timothy Beach, was one of the pro- 
 minent chara6lers in the book, by Priest, already referred 
 to, styled " Stories of the Early Settlers." They were 
 worthy, useful men. Frederick Schermerhorn married 
 near Hudson, but for more than fifty years lived about 
 two miles west of where he was taken prisoner, and 
 where now, May, 1866, his son, John Schermerhorn, 
 lives, aged seventy-seven years. Frederick Schermerhorn 
 died at the house of his son-in-law, Mr. Miller Jones, one 
 mile west of the Roundtop Methodist Church, in Cairo, 
 February 13, 1847, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. 
 He and his wife (who died in Oftober, 1846, aged seventy- 
 seven) were buried in the graveyard near where he was 
 taken prisoner. They were most of their lives worthy 
 members of the Presbyterian Church in Cairo. 
 
 The writer of this work has been told by an aged man 
 who lives- near where the Stropes were killed, that two 
 tories came with the Indians to the house as guides and 
 helpers, as was done when the Abeels and the Snyders 
 were taken, as is elsewhere related in this work. One of 
 these tories lived near Acra, two or three miles north- 
 west of the Stropes, and harbored the Indians ; and the 
 other lived on the Cautenskill Creek, near Catskill. Priest 
 did not allude to these men, probably because the family 
 of one of them lived near him when he was in Cairo ; and 
 
And the Region Around. 6j 
 
 perhaps no good end would be answered by publishing 
 their names. Priest speaks of intending to publish a 
 work called " Legends of the Mohawk," in the time of 
 the Revolution, which I have not seen. His books 
 have much that is wild and fanciful in them, with fre- 
 quent and singular episodes ; but yet he coUefted and pre- 
 served much that was interesting and valuable, including 
 a large oftavo work, in which he tries to prove, as Elias 
 Boudinot and others have done, that our western Indians 
 are descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. 
 
 There were some of the Schermerhom family on the 
 Mohawk River who suffered much from the Indians and 
 Tories during the Revolutionary War. One of them, 
 named Abraham Schermerhom, fled repeatedly from his 
 home in Glenville, to Scheneftady, for safety. On one 
 occasion a party led by Butler, infamously notorious for 
 his connection with the massacre of the whites in Wyo- 
 ming Valley, in Northern Pennsylvania, came to Scher- 
 merhorn's house, plundered it of all provisions, broke in 
 pieces all the crockery and iron ware, threw a barrel of 
 tar into the well, and wrote his name on the door of the 
 house, that it might be known who had called there. His 
 party carried away two boys, one a German and the other 
 a negro, the former of whom they scalped for the sake of 
 the bounty paid by the British for the scalps ; but this was 
 done carefully, so that he recovered from the savage 
 operation. The names of the Indians who captured 
 Schermerhom were Wampehassee, who was the owner 
 of the prisoner, Achewayume, Tom Tory, and John 
 Teets ; the two last probably nicknames, given by the 
 English, 
 
68 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Abeels.— Their Residence.— Strong Whigs.— H. M. Brace, Esq.— Hia 
 Nairative. — Time of the Capture. — Sources of Infonnation. — Indians and 
 Tories.— Settlement in Prattsville. — A Fight There.— The Abeels Taken.— 
 Negro Impudence. — ^A Tory Neighbor. — Garret Abeel and Mulligan. — 
 Route of the Indians. — Danger .of David Abeel. — Great Suifering by the 
 Way. — Running the Gauntlet — Release and Return of David. — ^Anthony's 
 Captivity and Escape. — The Captivity of Captain Jeremiah Snyder and His 
 Son Elias. — Their Residence in Saugerties. — ^Dominie Van Vlierden. — His 
 Sermon. — ^An Adventure of Captain Snyder before his Capture. — Capture of 
 Him and His Son. — Indian Quarrel. — ^The House Robbed and Burned. — ^A 
 Son Released. — They. Cross the Mountains. — Tory Aid. — The Captain*s Pa- 
 pers. — Canoe-making. — Down the Delaware. — ^They Reach the Susquehan- 
 na. — A Rattlesnake Feast. — Tioga Point — Chemung River. — Lieutenant 
 Boyd's Party. — Murphy. — A Fackhoise. — Tory Neighbors. — A White 
 Squaw. — Fishing. — Thieves. — Escape the Gauntlet — Enter Fort Niagara. — 
 Captives at Night— Their Food.— The Jansens.— Short and Miller.— War- 
 whoops. 
 
 THREE miles and a half from Catskill the road to 
 Mountain House crosses the Cauterskill Creek 
 in a beautiful valley between two high hills. In 
 ascending the hill beyond the bridge, there may be 
 seen, near the creek, half a mile to the left, a long, 
 low, stone house, with a large basement kitchen under 
 one end, — such a house as the early Dutch far- 
 mers in this region commonly built, the stones being 
 of a light color, unhewn, of every form and size, and 
 joined with rude cement. From this house, in the 
 spring of the year 1780, David Abeel and his son An- 
 thony, zealous Whigs and worthy and intelligent men, 
 were carried away captives to Canada ; having been taken 
 
And the Region Around. 69 
 
 prisoners by a party of Indians and tories. Their imme- 
 diate descendants still live in this region, and are among 
 the most respe6table, thrifty, and intelligent of our popu- 
 lation. 
 
 For the fafts which follow, I am mainly indebted to 
 Henry M. Bruce, Esq., of New York City, a lawyer ; a son 
 of the late Dr. Abel Bruce, of Catslcill, an eminent, skilful, 
 and benevolent physician. Mr. Bruce is a man of strong 
 antiquarian tastes, and of much research in that direflion. 
 At the close of his narrative he thus writes : 
 
 The foregoing account I have derived mainly from Mr. 
 David G. Abeel, a grandson of David, and nephew of 
 Anthony. He is now seventy-five years of age, and has 
 often heard his uncle describe his capture and the adven- 
 tures of his father and himself. I have also obtained a 
 few details from Mr. Frederic Overbaugh and his wife, 
 who were well acquainted with Anthony Abeel. The 
 writer of this work would here add that Colonel David 
 G. Abeel is still living, at the age of eighty-two, with his 
 mind aftive and vigorous, and well recoUefting what he 
 has known of the events recorded below. And here I 
 begin the narrative of Mr. Bruce, giving the spring of 
 1 78 1 as the time when the Abeels were taken captives, as 
 determined by the narrative of the Snyders, who were 
 with them in Canada, Mr. Bruce having been unable to 
 learn at what time they were taken by the Indians. Mr. 
 Bruce must have written his narrative some eight years 
 since, as CoL Abeel was then seventy-five years old. 
 
 MR. BRUCE's narrative. 
 
 " Men and women are still living who have heard 
 Anthony Abeel tell the story of his own and his father's 
 captivity among the Indians, during the Revolutionary 
 
70 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 War. The Abeels were strong Whigs ; and, as their zeal 
 in this respe<St offended their Tory neighbors, they re- 
 solved to punish them. As their house was distant from 
 others, and defenseless, their capture was easy and safe. 
 This was effefted by five or six Mohawk Indians, aided 
 by two or three tories, who were neighbors and former 
 friends of the Abeels. These Indians came by the way 
 of -the Schoharie Kill, or Creek, through where the town 
 of Hunter now is, and, from time to time crossing the 
 mountain, were a constant source of anxiety to the early 
 settlers in this region." [A settlement of Dutch emi- 
 grants, from Schoharie County, was made on the flats in 
 Prattsville, west of the mountains, soon after the French 
 War, in 1763. During the Revolutionary War, they were 
 attacked by a party of tories and Indians ; and, in a battle 
 near where the Windham turnpike bridge now is, the 
 assaihng party were routed.] 
 
 "One Sabbath evening, in the spring of 1781, the 
 Abeels, having just returned from a religious meeting, 
 were taking their supper, when their house was suddenly 
 entered by Indians and tories. They were taken wholly 
 by surprise, so that there was no time to seize their guns, 
 which were on the brackets attached to the great beams 
 overhead; nor would they have been of any use to them 
 had they done so, for the negro servants or slaves of the 
 family, being leagued with the Indians, had during the 
 day taken the priming from the guns, and put ashes in 
 the pans. A sister of Anthony Abeel used to teU vrith 
 much glee how, amid the confusion of the capture, she 
 crept under the table, and took the silver shoe and knee 
 buckles from her father and brother, and hid them in her 
 bosom." [An aft showing great courage and presence of 
 mind on her part, though it may be presumed that she did 
 not feel very gleeful while she was doing so.] "The 
 
And the Region Around. yi 
 
 house was plundered, chests and tables were split in 
 pieces by the Indians with their tomahawks, beds were 
 ripped open, the feathers scattered, and small articles of 
 value were carried away. The women of the family were 
 not molested, but David and his son Anthony were taken 
 prisoners. As David was advanced in life, he would not 
 have been taken away, had he not recognized one of his 
 tory neighbors, who was painted and disguised as an 
 Indian, incautiously saying to him, as he called him by 
 name, 'Is that you?' The tory replied, 'Since you 
 know me, you must go too.' A large negro servant of 
 the family aided the Indians in binding the prisoners, 
 grossly abusing his master, and snatching his hat from 
 him, and giving his own in exchange, said, ' I am mas- 
 ter now : take that' On their way to Canada, the negro 
 was insolent to one of the Indians, who gave him a blow 
 which nearly cost him his life. 
 
 " Garret Abeel, a younger brother of Anthony, had been 
 spending the day with John Schunneman, at the parson- 
 age of the dominie, his father, in Leeds ; and, on returning 
 home at evening, he heard an unusual noise in the house. 
 Having secured the aid of one Mulligan, who lived be- 
 tween the Abeels and where the turnpike now crosses the 
 creek, they hid in the bushes by the path, near the house, 
 and saw the Indians pass with their prisoners and spoil, 
 the leader of the party carrying a lantern to guide them 
 in their way. Garret raised his gun, and was about to 
 fire, when Mulligan " [who, as Col. Abeel informed me, 
 was trembling with fear] "checked him, saying, 'Don't 
 shoot, — you may kill your own father.' The prisoners 
 were led by way of the mountains, and spent one or two 
 nights in a small fort, on the southwest slope of Round- 
 top, beyond the Cautenskill Clove, midway between 
 Roundtop and High Peak. The remains of this fort 
 
72 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 were visible as late as 1848. From the fort they went, 
 by a footpath, down the banks of the Schoharie Kill. 
 David Abeel, being old, fell behind in the march, until 
 having overheard one of the party say that it would be 
 necessary to kill him, that he might not delay them in 
 their journey, he then strained every nerve and kept up 
 with them. Having spoken to the leader of the party, in 
 the Indian tongue, he was surprised, and asked him 
 where he had learned the Mohawk language. He re- 
 plied, ' I was for a long time a trader among them.' 
 After this he was treated kindly by the Indians. 
 
 " Their destination was Canada ; by what route they went 
 is not known, (probably by the same with Schermerhorn 
 and the Snyders, by the way of the Delaware, Chemung, 
 Susquehanna, and Genesee rivers.) They had a vast 
 unbroken wilderness to pass ; and, finding no game in the 
 midst of it, they well-nigh died of hunger, having first 
 eaten two or three dogs they had with them, and then 
 living on roots and herbs. When they were suffering 
 most, the leader of the party found a goose-egg, and, roast- 
 ing it, gave half of it to David Abeel. I was once told, by 
 a Revolutionary soldier named French, that he with others 
 started, a day or two after the Abeels were taken, in pur- 
 suit of the Indians, and reached the fort near High Peak 
 soon after they had left it, the ashes of their fires being 
 still warm, and then followed the Schoharie Kill to the 
 Mohawk without finding them. 
 
 " Before reaching Canada, Anthony Abeel was made to 
 run the gauntlet, his father being excused on account of 
 his age, and as a proof of the friendship of the Indians 
 for him. Before preparing for the race, he was told by 
 his father, who was familiar with Indian customs, that the 
 younger Indians would probably throw themselves in his 
 way, to hinder him in his course, and if they did so, to 
 
And the Region Around. 73 
 
 knock them down. He then took oif his coat and shoes, 
 and began to run, when a young Indian put himself in his 
 way and tried to stop him, but he gave him a blow under 
 his ear which knocked him down. The other Indians 
 filled the air with shouts of derisive laughter at this mis- 
 hap, leaping and yelling with delight. Amid the confusion 
 Anthony finished his race without another blow. David 
 Abeel was soon released on parole, on account of his age, 
 and sent home. Anthony was a prisoner two years. 
 Some of his time he employed in making brooms and 
 baskets, which he sold, and thus supplied himself with 
 tobacco, whiskey, and other unclean luxuries. At length 
 he made his escape with the Snyders, whose narrative 
 follows this. They almost died of hunger by the way, 
 having at one time been without food for nine successive 
 days, with the exception of a few roots and some horse- 
 flesh which they found by the way. At another time they 
 saved themselves from starving by a hearty meal of steak 
 taken from a cow which crossed their way. When they 
 reached a friendly settlement they were exhausted with 
 privation and fatigue, their clothes were in tatters, and 
 their feet badly wounded and bare. Their wants werei 
 however, freely and fully supplied ; and in due time they 
 safely reached their homes. How and when they did so 
 may be learned from the narrative of the Snyders, which 
 follows this of the Abeels. " 
 
 THE CAPTIVITY OF CAPTAIN JEREMIAH SNYDER, OF SAUG- 
 ERTIES, AND HIS SON ELIAS, AMONG THE INDIANS AND 
 BRITISH IN CANADA, IN THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION- 
 ARY WAR. 
 
 The narrative, the substance of which is given below, 
 was first published by Mr. Charles G. Dewitt in the " Ulster 
 Sentinel," in Kingston, of which he was editor, in the year 
 
74 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 1827. Mr. Dewitt, who has since died, was a relative of 
 the Snyders, and wrote this narrative from the verbal 
 statements to him by Captain Snyder, who was then in his 
 eighty-ninth year. It was republished in the "Saugerties 
 Telegraph" of January 25 and February i, 1851, copies of 
 which were preserved by my neighbor in Kiskatom, Mr. 
 Jeremiah E. Snyder, son of Ellas, one of the captives, 
 and who is now (June, 1866) living near me, aged eighty, 
 having been born soon after the close of the Revolutionary 
 War. The place where the Snyders lived when they were 
 taken captives was about a mile north of the Blue Moun- 
 tain Reformed Dutch Church, where an old, unoccupied 
 stone house now stands, on the farm of Mr. Valk. Jere- 
 miah E. Snyder married a daughter of Dominie Van Vlier- 
 den, a native of Holland, who formerly preached in the 
 Dutch language alone in the old stone church in Kaats- 
 bann, in the north part of Saugerties, where he died. With 
 copies of the paper containing this narrative, I borrowed 
 and read with much interest the second edition of a ser- 
 mon preached in Catskill, July 30, 1812, by Dominie 
 Petrus Van Vlierden, it being a day of fasting and prayer 
 in connexion with our war with Great Britain. It was 
 translated from the Dutch into English by the Rev. Dr. 
 Ostrander, who, in the" year 1800, at the age of twenty, 
 entered the ministry of the Reformed Dutch Church, 
 preaching both in Dutch and English most of his life, hav- 
 ing been nine years pastor in Coxsackie, two in Catskill, 
 and fifty in Kaatsbann and Saugerties, as the successor 
 of Dominie Van Vlierden. Dr. Ostrander is still living in 
 Saugerties, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and the sixty- 
 sixth of his ministry, feeble in body, but with a well-stored, 
 acute, vigorous, and aftive mind. The sermon referred 
 to above is one of much earnestness, ability, and force. 
 Before the war of 1776, Captain Snyder, with a few 
 
And the Region Around. 75 
 
 others, had settled on the fertile interval lands, where he 
 was taken by the Indians, living in a log-house in the 
 midst of the forest, near the base of the Catskill Moun- 
 tains, about two miles east of the Plattekill Clove. He 
 had a wife and seven children, four sons and three daugh- 
 ters ; and known as a strong Whig and a military officer, 
 and with bitter tories all around him, his position was one 
 of much exposure and danger. 
 
 During the year previous to his capture. Captain Sny- . 
 der, his son Elias, and three others, were out in search of 
 tories, when Elias and two who were with him went in 
 pursuit of wild turkeys among the mountains, leaving the 
 Captain and one Anthony Van Schaick to go on alone. 
 While moving cautiously along, they were suddenly 
 startled by the firing of guns, and five bullets struck the 
 ground near Captain Snyder. He saw the muzzles of these 
 guns within deadly range of him, and was ordered, with a 
 curse, to lay down his arms, but saved his life by flight, 
 though thirteen shots had been fired at him. Van Schaick 
 also escaped by running. From a prisoner they took, 
 later the same day, they learned that he had been put for- 
 ward, on the cliff under which they passed, to see who they 
 were ; and, having told what he saw, they aimed their guns 
 mainly at Captain Snyder, as a military officer, and peculi- 
 arly hated by them. 
 
 Saturday, May 6, 1780, while Captain Snyder and Elias 
 were ploughing in a field near the house, their horses sud- 
 denly showed signs of fear, and soon a number of tories 
 and Indians rushed upon them from the forest in three 
 distin£l parties, so that they could flee only towards the 
 house. Leaving their horses, they fled, pursued by six 
 Indians, among whom were the celebrated John Runnip 
 and Shank's Ben, running and yelling with all their might. 
 Elias and his father soon took diflerent direflions, each ' 
 
"j^ The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 pursued by three Indians, when, seeing three tories com- 
 ing from a hill near the house, and finding themselves 
 entirely surrounded, Elias stopped running, and was taken 
 by a tall Indian, calling himself Hoornbeck, while his fa- 
 ther was seized by Runnip, at which two Indians and a 
 tory were very angry, having been in front of him when 
 he stopped and gave himself up to those who pursued 
 him. This well-nigh proved fatal to him, it being a rule 
 among the Indians that he who first laid hands on a 
 prisoner, or obtained his scalp, was entitled to the reward 
 from the British Government for such humane and meri- 
 iorious afls ; and, when two or more came up at once, 
 they had a short way of ending the dispute by killing the 
 prisoner. Hence the leader of those in front, a short, 
 dark-skinned wretch, came up in a threatening manner ; 
 and, angry at having failed to take the prisoner, he struck 
 his tomahawk into the head of Captain Snyder, evidently 
 intending to kill him. It glanced, however, making him 
 reel, and leaving a deep cut near the ear. Another blow 
 was parried by Runnip, so that the head of the tomahawk 
 alone hit his shoulder, when the Indian was commanded 
 to desist. Another Indian tried to pierce him with a 
 spear ; but Runnip put it aside, thus saving his life. 
 
 They then went to the house, which the women and 
 children had left, having fled to the woods. Pork, maple 
 .sugar, and clothing were taken ; every room was searched ; 
 and the family chest with its till was broken open with 
 a tomahawk, in search of four guineas which a tory had 
 paid the Captain a few days before, two of which they 
 found and about two hundred dollars in Continental money. 
 They had already set fire to the barn, and Captain Snyder 
 obtained permission to remove some bedding and other 
 articles for the use of his family from the house before 
 it should be burned. While he and his son were carrj-ing 
 
And the Region Around. yj 
 
 out the chest, bedding, and other articles, one of the In- 
 dians ordered them to stop ; the house was set on fire, 
 and they left for the mountains with their provisions and 
 plunder. A tory neighbor who lived not more than four 
 hundred yards distant saw what was doing, and withdrew, 
 that he might not be called upon for aid. 
 
 After going a short distance in the forest. Captain Snyder 
 and Elias prevailed upon the tories to release Ephraim, 
 his youngest son, who was lame and only nine years old, 
 whom the Indians had captured in hopes of reward. In 
 passing from the hill too, in pursuit of the captives, the 
 Indians saw the women in the bushes, but did not disturb 
 them. Soon they stopped to divide the plunder into con- 
 venient packs for carrying, and to paint the prisoners ; and 
 then they moved on again in Indian file. The pilot or 
 leader of the party was the Indian who tried to run Captain 
 Snyder through with a spear, and who had taken the name 
 of William Van Bergen ; after whom came the prisoners, 
 and then the other Indians and the tories. The captives 
 had no packs, and Captain Snyder carried only one of the 
 axes taken from his house. The feet of Elias were sore from 
 the earth and small stones in his shoes, causing much 
 pain. They soon came to a narrow cleft in the rocks, 
 where the leader, reaching up his hands, laid his gun on a 
 shelf of rock higher than his head ; and then, seizing some 
 bushes, he drew himself up to a platform above. Elias 
 followed him ; and, taking the axe from his father, he too 
 climbed up. Alone there with the Indian, who was look- 
 ing up to a higher ledge before him, while those below 
 were out of sight, Elias, expedling to be murdered beyond 
 the mountains, with the axe in his hand, felt strongly 
 tempted to kill the Indian and to try to escape ; but his 
 father, seeing the danger of his doing so, shook his head, 
 and took the axe from him. 
 
78 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 They then moved in an oblique diredtion up the moun- 
 tain, crossing the Cautenskill near where Patensville now 
 is, and passed to the south of Pine Orchard between two 
 lakes on the east branch of the Schoharie Kill. Through 
 this and the other kill, they waded breast high, and near 
 by encamped for the night. Expefting, as they did, an 
 early and a violent death, their minds were much relieved 
 when Runnip told them that they would not be hurt, if 
 they made no attempt to escape ; that they were taking 
 them to Niagara ; that they would use them as well as they 
 could ; but that death would be their lot if- they attempted 
 to escape. He would be kind to them, he said, for he 
 might in turn fall into their hands. 
 
 The next morning being Sunday, the Indians left the to- 
 nes at their camp-fire with the Continental money and two 
 guns taken from the Captain, and guided by Runnip, who 
 now took command of the party, they went on to a ravine 
 near the head of the Schoharie Kill, where was a depot of 
 provisions, about ten feet from the ground, on a scaffold 
 formed by two small hemlock-trees and a crotched stake 
 or post. Here they remained until Tuesday morning, 
 Monday being wet. During the day Runnip produced a 
 bundle of papers belonging to Captain Snyder, taken from 
 his chest, and carefully examined them, btlrning the small 
 ones, which contained many important memoranda of mil- 
 itary operations among the Whigs, and preserving the 
 large ones, which were a lieutenant's and captain's com- 
 mission in the service, with some title-deeds of property 
 and other papers. Tuesday morning, May 9, at daybreak, 
 the Indians arranged and filled their packs for each one of 
 them, eight in all, taking down from their depot Indian 
 meal and peas. During the two days they were there, 
 nine hungry swine could not have eaten more than they 
 did. Van Bergen was the commissary of the party ; and 
 
And tJu Region Around. 79 
 
 Runnip and Hoornbeck afterwards subdivided their packs, 
 allotting a part to each. Captain Snyder shouldered his 
 pack ; while Elias, by complimenting Hoornbeck as being 
 stronger than himself, was relieved of one third of his 
 pack, the Indian having emptied it into his own. 
 
 At eight A. M. they moved onward, Runnip leading them, 
 and climbed a lofty peak of the AUeghanies, where the 
 snow was still four feet deep the 9th of May. It was 
 hard enough to bear them, and Runnip measured its depth 
 by running his spear into it. Near sunset they reached 
 the east branch of the Delaware, where they encamped. 
 Runnip and another Indian then went towards Middle- 
 town, which they called Pohatoghhon, in quest of potatoes, 
 which, in fleeing from the country in alarm the autumn 
 previous, the settlers had left in the ground, and were still 
 in a good state of preservation. Four others, with Shank's 
 Ben at their head, went a little way up stream to cut down 
 an elm-tree, from which to make a bark canoe, while the 
 other two Indians were sitting on the ground mending 
 their moccasins. The tomahawks were lying on the ground, 
 and the guns were by a tree not far from Elias ; and just 
 as he, by a silent signal between him and his father, was 
 about to seize the tomahawks, with a view to despatch the 
 two Indians near them and then escape, the four Indians 
 who had gone for the elm-tree came running into camp, 
 thinking perhaps of their imprudence, and, taking Elias 
 with them, thus defeated his plan. 
 
 In making a canoe, the bark is carefully peeled ; the 
 rough outside is removed so as to make it pliable ; and 
 then it is stretched inside out over twigs, in the form of 
 ribs, to give it the right shape. Near each end the bark 
 is pared away so as easily to bend and overlap ; and thus 
 the bow and stern are formed, where, and in knot-holes, a 
 kind of pulp of elm bark is placed, to caulk them and 
 
So The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 make them water-tight. Their paddles were sph't from 
 small ash-trees, and were mainly used to steer with, as 
 Indians do not often move in still water or against the 
 current. About noon the next day, Wednesday, the eight 
 Indians, with their prisoners and packs, left in their 
 canoe ; and finding, three miles below, a log canoe, two 
 Indians entered it with their baggage, giving the others 
 more room. After floating down stream twenty-four 
 miles, they spent the night on shore, at Middagh's Place, 
 where the Indians took two bushels of corn from a secret 
 depot ; it was somewhat musty, but answered well for 
 food. The next morning, after floating down sixteen 
 miles to Shehawcon, where the eastern and western 
 branches of the Delaware unite, they left their canoes. 
 After marching about six miles, Runnip was suddenly 
 seized with a fit of fever and ague, which detained them 
 until the next morning. Saturday noon they reached the 
 Susquehanna River, about sixty miles above Tioga Point, 
 having been eight days in reaching that place from Sau- 
 gerties, their progress being slow, as their packs weighed 
 about one hundred and thirty pounds each. Here one of 
 the Indians killed a rattlesnake, which Runnip skinned, 
 cleaned, and chopped into small pieces, made a soup of 
 it, ate the flesh and drank the soup, and was entirely well 
 of his fever. 
 
 Having here made another canoe from the bark of a 
 large chestnut, they left Sunday at nine a.m., and reached 
 Tioga Point Tuesday morning. On their way, two Indi- 
 ans landed at the head of an island, and shot a young 
 elk, which they ate. Leaving the canoe at Tioga Point, 
 they went up the Chemung River, along its banks, and 
 passed a breastwork which the Indians had thrown up 
 the year before to resist the invasion of General Sullivan. 
 Between this and the Genesee Flats, on Sullivan's route, 
 
And the Region Around. 8i 
 
 were a couple of mounds beside the path. "There h'e 
 your brothers," said Runnip, in Dutch, pointing at the 
 mounds. These were the graves of a scouting-party of 
 thirty-six men, sent forth from Sullivan's army, who had 
 been cut off by the Indians. One, Murphy, escaped ; 
 and Lieutenant Boyd and a sergeant, after having been 
 examined by Butler, the leader of the Indians, were 
 given over to be massacred. Near these mounds they 
 saw one of Sullivan's packhorses, which had strayed from 
 the army and spent the hard winter of 1780 in the long 
 grass on one of the Chemung Flats. He was a small, 
 thickset bay, low in flesh, but apparently in good spirits, 
 and with no signs of fear. Here the feet of Elias were 
 covered with blisters ; and they favored him by halting, 
 as Indians do6lor their prisoners with the tomahawk alone, 
 thus quickly ending their sufferings. 
 
 The Sunday following they met two tories, John Young 
 and Frederick Rowe, of Saugerties, on their way to the 
 frontiers with a party of Indians. Young had lived for 
 years within a mile of Captain Snyder ; and they conversed 
 freely with each other, he being civil and sociable, and 
 inquiring after his friends and as to the state of the war. 
 Rowe said nothing. They there waded the Genesee River 
 up to their armpits, and, without stopping to dry their 
 clothes, walked about a dozen miles and encamped. There 
 they met a white woman, between twenty and thirty years 
 old, with a child in her arms, and an Indian, her husband, 
 with her. She asked as to- news in English, and inter- 
 preted to her husband the answers given, in what was sup- 
 posed to be the Seneca language. She also questioned 
 the prisoners with regard to their capture and other mat- 
 ters. She said that she had been taken by the Indians in 
 the old French War, and had lived with them since, but 
 could not tell from whence she had been taken. Her hus- 
 6 
 
82 The Catshill Mountains, 
 
 band was probably a chief, a man of good manners and 
 appearance, and about thirty years of age. They had 
 spent the winter there, not having been disturbed by Sul- 
 livan's invasion. She was not without intelligence and 
 beauty, and in her Indian dress was interesting in her 
 appearance. 
 
 They now for three or four days travelled over a fertile 
 region, meeting at times with Indian scouts ; and. May 24, 
 encamped by a stream within thirty miles of Niagara. As 
 the water here was in many places shallow, Elias and a 
 young Indian, a brother of Runnip, were employed in driv- 
 ing the fish over the shoal places, where the Indians shot 
 and speared them. They were suckers, some of them 
 more than three feet long and large in proportion, and 
 made, as cooked by the Indians, good food. The next 
 morning a runner was sent to Fort Niagara to give notice 
 of their approach, and probably to receive orders as to the 
 prisoners. When about- to start, a Seneca Indian, appar- 
 ently of some distinftion, approached Runnip, and having 
 spoken a few words to him, came up to Captain Snyder 
 and took hold of his coat, when Runnip told him, in 
 Dutch, to take it off and give it to the Indian, which he 
 did, when the Indian threw it over his arm and went away. 
 Soon after this they met a party of Indians on their way 
 to the Genesee Flats to plant com, and the squaws in 
 passing robbed them of their hats. They met also two 
 squaws, one of them a sister of Runnip, who turned back 
 with them to Niagara. Runnip and his sister had great 
 joy at meeting ; and the squaws shook hands with all the 
 party, as is the uniform custom with Indians when they 
 meet with strangers or with friends. 
 
 On the morning of the 26th of May, after passing the 
 night within four or five miles of the fort, they moved 
 onwards ; and at the end of two miles met the runner com- 
 
And the Region Around. 83 
 
 ing from the fort, who turned back after speaking with Run- 
 nip, while the latter turned towards Niagara River for a 
 mile or more, where they again met the runner with four 
 or five white men and several unarmed Indians. Under 
 their protedtion, and that of Runnip and his party, the 
 prisoners were led to the ford, passing through an encamp- 
 ment of several thousand Indians, whose cabins extended 
 more than a mile in length. This was called " running the 
 gauntlet," and sometimes proved fatal to the defenseless 
 captives. There was no danger from the warriors, who 
 were above such revenge ; but the young Indians and 
 squaws, armed with clubs and sticks, delighted to beat out 
 the brains of Whigs, against whom they were greatly ex- 
 asperated, especially after Sullivan's invasion. The Cap- 
 tain and his son, however, were so closely surrounded by 
 those with them that the Indians could not get at them ; 
 and, moving rapidly, they entered the fort. Thus, after a 
 circuitous Indian journey of probably more than five hun- 
 dred miles, they at last reached the British rendezvous, 
 bareheaded, and the Captain without his coat ; and, not- 
 withstanding all their severe toil, hardships, and exposure, 
 their health was uninjured. 
 
 And here it may be well to notice some matters of inter- 
 est connefted with the manners and customs of the Indians, 
 as they presented themselves to those of whom I am 
 writing. The manner of sleeping common to Indians 
 who had captives with them was to pass the middle of a 
 long cord around the arms of their prisoners, knotting it 
 on the back, and then, stretching it to its full length each 
 way, the ends were fastened to stakes driven in the ground. 
 On this cord the Indians spread their blankets and slept, 
 that thus they might easily know of any effort of their 
 prisoners to escape. The captives, when they could, made 
 a bed of the branches of hemlock or other evergreens ; 
 
84 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and, when it rained, covered their beds with a scaffold of 
 the same Icind, and slept under it, the Indians sleeping on 
 the bare ground. The captor always slept next to his 
 prisoner. Each Indian had a small brass kettle for cook- 
 ing his food, with a common right to cook in a large one 
 belonging to the whole company. Van Bergen was cook, 
 and with a wooden ladle gave to each Indian his mess in 
 the small kettles, leaving the portion of the captives, which 
 was a liberal one, in the larger one. Their meals were 
 commonly of suppawn, or sepawn, as Webster spells it ; 
 this being, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the name still 
 given to the boiled Indian meal or hasty-pudding of New 
 England. With this they had boiled peas and small por- 
 tions of the pork taken from Captain Snyder's house. Of 
 game they had little, except the flesh of a young elk and 
 part of a deer, left by the wolves on the banks of the Del- 
 aware. They also killed muskrats, but the Indians alone 
 could digest them. Salt, Indians do not relish ; but they 
 had some for their prisoners. 
 
 The Indian who tomahawked Captain Snyder shaved 
 him twice a week, but never spoke of, nor seemed to 
 notice, the wound on his head. The prisoners were 
 painted on the first two days of their capture, and not 
 again until they reached the Susquehanna, after which 
 they were painted every morning. To give the eyes a 
 fiery cast, they had a mixture injefted into them, unplea- 
 sant but not painful. They conversed with Runnip in 
 broken Dutch, but were mostly silent. Runnip often 
 said that they were going after prisoners of a higher rank 
 to Shawangunk, — for the Jansens, one of whom he said 
 was a colonel, and the other a major. Captain Snyder 
 and his son afterwards learned from some prisoners 
 who were brought out that they met Runnip and his 
 party in the Genesee country in July, on their way to 
 
And the Region Around. 85 
 
 Shawangunk. Runnip had some manly traits. In this 
 last expedition they had as prisoners Peter Short and his 
 son-in-law, Peter Miller, of Woodstock. Under the 
 guidance of tories they had painted Short black, which 
 was a sign among the Indians that any one might put 
 him to death. Against this Runnip remonstrated, saying 
 that he had not treated the Snyders in this way, and told 
 Short to wash his face, which saved his life, as otherwise 
 the young Indians and squaws would have beat his brains 
 out A year afterwards Captain Snyder and his son- 
 learned in Canada from Captain Anthony Abeel, of Cats- 
 kill, of the result of Runnip's expedition to Shawangunk. 
 This word is commonly pronounced " Shongum,'' and is 
 on the south line of Ulster County, adjoining Orange 
 County. They did not succeed in taking the Jansens, 
 but captured their negroes, who rose upon the Indians 
 by the way, and killed some of them. It is thought that 
 Runnip was thus killed. The negroes were never heard 
 of; and it is supposed, that, being lost in the forest, they 
 perished from want. On meeting in the wilderness, the 
 Indians gave as many yells 'or whoops as they had 
 prisoners and scalps. The yell for prisoners was loud 
 and long, to the full length of the breath, ending with a 
 shrill whoop ; the yell for scalps was short and abrupt. 
 Where parties suddenly met in a thicket, without seeing 
 each other at a distance, they passed without taking 
 notice of those passing them ; and the yells were given 
 when they had left those they had met some distance in 
 the rear. 
 
86 The Catskill Moimtains, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fort Niagara.— Dr. Bethnne.— Colonel Johnson.— Colonel Butler.— A Tory 
 Friend.— Brant's visit— James Butler.- Carlton Island.— Ogdensburg.— 
 Cot^ du Lac. — Montreal. — The Bevot there. — Prison Life. — General McLain. 
 — Sir William Grant. — Labor of Prisoners. — An Escape. — Prison Fare. — Col- 
 onel Gordon. — Release of Captain Abeel. — Isle of Jesu. — Life there. — New 
 Clothes. — Books.— They prepare to escape. — The Fourth of July. — Escape 
 from the Island. — Point au Tremble. — Chambly River. — Hessian Boat — 
 Axes lost. — A British Blockhouse. — Surge Marsli. — ^A False Alarm. — ^^Lake 
 Magog. — Indians — Conne£licut River. — They Cross it. — A Narrow Es- 
 cape. — Wild Berries. — ^A Log-house. — Kind Friends. — General Bailey. — New 
 Shoes. — A Horse. — Routes Home. — Short and Miller. — Letter of Mr. Eme- 
 rick. — Massacre at Minisink. — Burial of its Vidlims. — Raid on Harpersiield 
 and Canajoharie. — Brant in Ulster County. — His History. — Rev. Dr. Whee- 
 lock. — Brant visits England. — Sir William Johnson and the Indians. — The 
 Butlers. — Colonel McKinstry. — His Life saved by Brant — Their Friendship. 
 — Brant's Visits. — Sullivan's Expedition. — Brant's Family. — HisDeath. — His 
 Sons. — Their Education. — Vindication of him by his Son, — Thomas Camp- 
 bell. 
 
 FORT Niagara was large and strong, having been 
 early built by the French, and was one of the 
 strongest holds of the British in the west. It was 
 on a tongue of land jutting into Lake Ontario, with the 
 Niagara River on one side and a cove on the other. On 
 the land side it had a breastwork fifteen feet high, covered 
 with turf, and inclosed some six or eight acres of land. 
 There was in it a handsome wooden edifice for the use of 
 the head of the Indian Department, who was then Col. 
 Guy Johnson. [Fort Niagara was taken from the United 
 States by the British in the war of 1812, and was held by 
 them some time. A history of this fort may be found in 
 the " Gazetteer of New York," published in Syracuse in 
 i860; and engravings both of its interior and exterior are 
 
And the Region Around. 87 
 
 given in the late Rev. Dr. George W. Bethune's Life of his 
 mother, who was born in the fort, while her father was 
 Surgeon of a British regiment stationed there.] Colonel 
 Johnson was a native of Ireland, and a son-in-law of Sir 
 William Johnson (whose life by Mr. William L. Stone has 
 been recently published). Capt. Snyder and his son were 
 seated on the piazza in front of the fort, with the Indians 
 on either side of them, when Colonel Johnson made his ap- 
 pearance. He was a short, thickset man, about forty 
 years of age, of a stern countenance and haughty man- 
 ners, in British uniform, with powdered locks, cocked hat, 
 and a sword by his side. His voice was harsh, with a 
 touch of the brogue. He ordered a white flag to be raised, 
 as a signal for Colonel Butler, who had a regiment of rangers 
 on the opposite shore, and direfted a servant to give 
 rum first to the Indians and then to the prisoners. Soon 
 Butler came, with two of his soldiers, and joined Colonel 
 Johnson. He was a native of Connefticut, tall and portly, 
 dressed in a green uniform, and apparently about fifty years 
 of age. . 
 
 When Johnson and Butler were seated opposite the 
 prisoners, Runnip gave the papers taken from Snyder to 
 Colonel Johnson, and gave an account of the prisoners, 
 and where they were taken. The papers were exam^ined 
 by each of the ofiicers, and laid aside. Johnson asked what 
 news there was on the frontiers, when Runnip replied, that 
 the British fleet were up the Hudson River, as high as 
 Kingston, and that he and his companions had been 
 down to the point, and had seen the vessels. When 
 Johnson asked Captain Snyder about it, he said, " It may 
 be so ; we do not know." Then followed the questions and 
 answers given below. " Is Charleston taken ? " " It was 
 besieged, but we cannot tell whether it was taken or not." 
 " What is the strength of the rebel army under Washing- 
 
88 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ton ? " " We cannot tell." " Do the rebels still keep up their 
 spirits ? " " As far as we know they do." " How are 
 the times ? " " Not very encouraging." " Is West Point 
 called Fort Defiance .' " "We never heard it called so.'' 
 " It is called so, and you ought to know it." 
 
 Runnip then rose, and made a speech in his native 
 tongue, of some ten or fifteen minutes, which a Stock- 
 bridge Indian rendered fluently into English. The sub- 
 stance of it was : " The quarrel is between you and them 
 (the Americans), and we expert to be well rewarded for 
 what we have done." Johnson answered that he was 
 willing to reward them with rum, provisions, and corn, but 
 that they must give none to the Indians around the fort. 
 He said that they had already been furnished and ordered 
 to the Genesee Flats to plant ; but many of them, through 
 laziness or dislike, went a little way, got drunk, and 
 returned. The Five Nations of Indians, after their plan- 
 tations on the Genesee Flats had been destroyed by 
 General Sullivan the year previous, had retreated to near 
 Fort Niagara, where they had been maintained during the 
 winter by the British Government. Having there been 
 fed mostly on salt meat, great numbers of them died of 
 scurvy. Runnip now took Captain Snyder by the hand and 
 deliyered him to Colonel Johnson, and his son Elias, in 
 the same way, to Butler. An escort of soldiers then 
 conduced them to a guardhouse on the wall of the fort, 
 where they were confined a week. The third day, a tory 
 sergeant named Rowe, belonging to Butler's corps, visit- 
 ed them. He had lived near the Snyders, in Saugerties, 
 and came to inquire about his relatives and friends. He 
 was civil, and seemed to pity them ; but they could con- 
 verse only in the presence of a British sergeant, and 
 aloud. Captain Snyder and his son were here furnished 
 with frock coats of coarse Indian cloth. 
 
And the Region Around. -89 
 
 While in the guardhouse they were visited by Brant, 
 the celebrated Indian chief. He was good-looking, of a 
 fierce aspedl, tall and rather spare, well spoken, and appar- 
 ently about thirty years of age. He wore moccasins ele- 
 gantly trimmed with beads, leggings and a breechcloth 
 of superfine blue, a short green coat, with two silver epau- 
 lets, and a small, round, laced hat. By his side was an 
 elegant silver-mounted cutlass ; and his blanket of blue 
 cloth (purposely dropped in the chair on which he sat to 
 display his epaulets) was gorgeously adorned with a bor- 
 der of red. His language was very insulting, asking many 
 questions ; and, having learned that they were from near 
 Esopus, he said, " That is my old fighting-ground." They 
 were led to form a very unfavorable opinion of Brant, from 
 his treatment of them. Speaking to Elias, he said, " You 
 are young, and I pity you ; but for that old villain," point- 
 ing.to his father, " I have no pity." 
 
 At the end of the week they were removed across the 
 river, with Michael Vreeland, formerly of New Jersey, 
 James Butler of Philadelphia, and an Irishman by the 
 name of Gilfallen, and were put into the hold of a twelve- 
 gun vessel on Lake Ontario. Butler had been in SulH- 
 van's army, was taken prisoner by the Indians near Wyo- 
 ming, and adopted by an Indian family at Niagara, in place 
 of a lost son. He ran away several times to Niagara, was 
 sold to a British surgeon for two gallons of rum, and was 
 in the battles of Brand3rwine and Germantown. Sergeant 
 Rowe visited them on shipboard, and gave the Snyders 
 second-hand hats ; and a tory by the name of Birch, who 
 had known Benjamin Snyder, a brother of the captain, 
 was kind to them, and sent them seven pounds of sugar 
 and a pound of tea. Friday, June 2, the vessel set sail, 
 and the prisoners were permitted to come on deck. Sun- 
 day they were put ashore on Carlton Island, at the foot of 
 
go The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the lake, where they were confined in a small fortress 
 three days. They were then sent in batteaux, under a 
 guard of tories from Sir John Johnson's battalion, to Mon- 
 treal, stopping at Ogdensburg (then called Oswegatchie), 
 and receiving on board a female prisoner and five deserters 
 from the American army. The parting between this woman 
 and her husband, who was detained by his Indian captor, 
 was most afFefting, separating as they did in a paroxysm 
 of grief, with a flood of tears. At Cot6 du Lac they stopped 
 an hour, where an Irishman cursed Gilfallen for rebel- 
 ling against His Majesty, and then brought him a large 
 piece of bread and butter. June 12 they reached La Chine, 
 walking from thence nine miles to Montreal, where they 
 were confined in the Bevot, a military prison, of a class 
 in which there was great suflFering during our Revolu- 
 tionary War. The word " Bevot " is of French deriva- 
 tion. The Bevot at Montreal was a large, dismal-looking 
 stone building, with big windows, where were confined 
 American prisoners, and criminals of every kind. In a 
 room about sixteen feet by twenty, in the second story, 
 forty American prisoners, or " Yankees " as they were 
 called, were confined until August, while they slept in an 
 entry or gangway about sixteen feet by eight, where they 
 were stowed, twenty on a side, with their heads to the 
 wall, and barely space enough between their feet for the 
 guard to pass when he inspefted them at nine o'clock at 
 night. At times there were fifty prisoners in such apart- 
 ments ; some of whom, who had been longest confined, 
 were sent to Quebec to relieve the pressure. The 
 keeper of the Bevot, named Jones, who had married in 
 Albany, secured for the Snyders the privilege of remain- 
 ing at Montreal, and treated them kindly. 
 
 About the first of August, most of the prisoners were 
 taken before General McLain, an elderly Scotch officer, 
 
And the Region Around. gi 
 
 then commanding at Montreal. His manners were mild, 
 and he treated the prisoners well. He had gained a 
 viftory over the lamented Montgomery. Prisoners who 
 could secure recommendations from loyalists were em- 
 ployed by Sir William Grant, a paymaster in the British 
 army, who had married a wealthy Canadian lady, and 
 ■who was then building mills on an island at the lower end 
 of the city. The Snyders, who had none to recommend 
 them, Butler, who had come there from Niagara, having 
 refused to do so, were confined in the Bevot, until at 
 length the father was employed, the son remaining in 
 prison as a security for the father's fidelity. The prisoners 
 were mostly employed in blasting rocks and carrying the 
 hod, and were paid five dollars a month in coin. Captain 
 Snyder, however, who was expert in using tools, was 
 employed as carpenter, and soon so far secured the favor of 
 his emplo)'er as to obtain the release of his son from prison. 
 On the night of the 28th of Oftober, however, six of 
 • those employed by Grant escaped ; and the next day all 
 the other prisoners in his employ were again confined in 
 the Bevot. There they remained without stockings during 
 a Canadian winter, and two-thirds of the time until the 
 13th of June the next year were under the guard of a 
 cruel Hessian sergeant and twenty-four men, who beat 
 the prisoners with their swords. Near the end of Ofto- 
 ber. Sir William Grant paid all the prisoners what he 
 owed them, in coin. Some Indians in the employ of the 
 British having come to Montreal, while returning from a 
 drunken frolic by night, killed a Canadian, and wounded 
 another. The murderer, handcuffed and fettered, was 
 thrust into the Bevot, saying, " Me Yankee." He came 
 near being killed by a man named Brown, whose father 
 had been murdered by Indians in Harpersfield ; but as 
 two men named Hanson, from the Mohawk, would not 
 
92 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 agree to conceal the deed and the name of him who pro- 
 posed to do it, the Indian's life was saved, and the next 
 day he was taken from the prison. 
 
 During their first confinement in the Bevot, they had a 
 short allowance of food, consisting of salt beef and pork, 
 peas and oatmeal for soup, with three pints of spruce- 
 beer, a day. Their food was drawn every Monday, and 
 was so stinted in quantity as with the utmost economy to 
 last only five days, leaving them two days of each week 
 without food. They cooked their food at a single fire, in 
 the guardroom below. The Hessians were cross, and 
 often drove them from the fire ; but as the Snyders were 
 of German descent, and spoke some High Dutch, they 
 were treated with more indulgence. The Bevot swarmed 
 with vermin ; and daily, after dinner, they tried to fi-ee 
 themselves from them, and spent much time in playing 
 cards. The money paid them by Grant enabled them to 
 purchase a little tea and coffee. They often heard the 
 scalp-yell in Montreal, and saw Indians coming in with 
 scalps of men, women, and children, arranged in regular 
 order on poles. 
 
 June 13, Colonel James Gordon, of Ballston, was brought 
 in a prisoner with others, having been taken by the 
 Indians in an irruption into that place. Through his 
 influence the Snyders and Captain David Abeel and his 
 son Anthony, of Catskill, who had been brought to the 
 Bevot the May previous (1781) with several others, were 
 liberated on parole, and billeted among the Canadians on 
 the Isle of Jesu, sixteen or eighteen miles above "Mon- 
 treal. Here they were not treated well, though better 
 than in the Bevot. The women were many and ill-natured, 
 and tried to prevent their making tea. In August, Cap- 
 tain Abeel, being more than fifty, was sent home under 
 guard, as it was not customary to detain old men, women, 
 
And the Region Around. 93 
 
 or children, the scalps alone of these being regarded as 
 desirable. About this time, Captain Drake, of Fishkill, 
 proposed employing Elias Snyder as a waiter ; but, as he 
 had signed the parole as equal with the rest, he refused 
 to be their servant. In Odtober, the well-known Captain 
 Wood, of Goshen, the only survivor of the massacre at 
 Minisink, in Orange County, joined them. December i, 
 they were all restrifted to one house, with orders not to 
 leave it. Sir John Johnson's battalion having arrived on 
 the island, and being, as was supposed, unwilling to see 
 rebels going at large. In three days, however, they were 
 allowed more liberty, and at Christmas began to have 
 better treatment and more cleanliness. 
 
 The Isle of Jesu is about forty miles long by eight or 
 nine wide, and they were then billeted among the Cana- 
 dians at St. Rosa, near the centre of the island. The 
 Snyders lived by themselves in the same family, and for 
 the first time had a separate bedroom, which was warm 
 and comfortable, the master of the house being aged, and 
 keeping a fire night and day. While there a roll of cloth, 
 called London Brown, was presented to them, having, it 
 was said, been sent by Quakers from London. A prison- 
 er by the name of Davis, a tailor, cut it for garments ; and 
 Captain Snyder, being ingenious at anything, made them 
 up after a fashion. By aiding during the summer in the 
 building- of .two houses, and laboring for farmers, they 
 earned a little money for the purchase of comforts, but 
 the winter was mostly spent in visiting and cards. An 
 Irishman named Conelly, who had been in the Bevot for 
 desertion, on being released, stole Pliny's Epistles, which 
 he gave to Elias. These were their only source of intel- 
 leftual amusement. One of the volumes is still in the 
 possession of Mr. Snyder ; the other he gave to James 
 Butler, who carried it to Philadelphia. 
 
94 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 In May, 1782, growing tired of confinement, they began 
 to speak of making their escape. Capt. Snyder at first 
 strongly opposed their attempting it, being unwilling to 
 violate his parole ; but when it was urged that, by having 
 been imprisoned three days in December, their parole 
 had been broken by the British, and they were free from 
 its obligation, and Elias having decided to desert at all 
 events, his father at length assented to the plan, and they 
 privately prepared for their escape. Young Snyder and 
 Butler bought leather of the merchants, for moccasins ; 
 and Captains Snyder and Philips, from Juniata, Pennsyl- 
 vania, procured a passport for Montreal, from the oificQr 
 in command ; and there, in a shop tended by a boy, 
 they purchased three pocket-compasses, as matters of 
 curiosity, pretending ignorance of their use. They cele- 
 brated the Declaration of Independence by contributing 
 each a small sum, buying with it four gallons of wine, two 
 of rum, and a sufficient supply of loaf sugar ; and there, 
 though prisoners in the enemy's country, almost with the 
 bayonet at their breasts, and the tomahawk over their 
 heads, did twenty good Whigs celebrate the Fourth of 
 July. 
 
 The loth of September was the day fixed upon for 
 their escape. On the eve of that day, while at supper 
 with the family, Elias rose from the table, and took from 
 the- cellar three large loaves of bread, and hid them under 
 a hovel behind the barn. Returning to the house, the 
 Captain then rose, and took pork from the cellar, conceal- 
 ing it in the same place with the bread. As soon as the 
 Canadians began vespers, the Snyders went to their 
 room, as if for rest ; and throwing their packs out of the 
 window, and following them themselves, they soon gath- 
 ered up their provisions in the hovel, joined their com- 
 rades, Jonathan Millet, of Stonington, Connedlicut, An- 
 
And the Region Around. 95 
 
 thony Abeel, of Catskill, and James Butler, of Philadel- 
 phia, and started for the lower part of the island. The 
 night was rainy ; two small boats were found at the end 
 of the island ; and with these lashed together for greater 
 safety, and with paddles previously prepared, they em- 
 barked. About three miles below, there were rapids to 
 pass, which, being dangerous in a dark night, almost dis- 
 couraged them. At length they landed Captain Snyder, 
 Abeel, and Millet, to carry down the baggage ; while 
 young Snyder and Butler, having separated the boats, 
 went with them down the rapids. Having, however, 
 landed lower down than had been expefted, they spent 
 most of the night in looking for their comrades, and at 
 daylight landed on a small desert island, about three 
 miles below the rapids and ten from Montreal. Here 
 they drew up their boats in the long grass ; and, as it 
 cleared off cold, they lay all day very uncomfortably in 
 their wet clothes. But there was no other way for them 
 to do, as the Canadian boatmen passed so near them that 
 they frequently saw them and heard them converse. At 
 dusk they left in their boats ; and crossing the St. Law- 
 rence at Point au Tremble, by daybreak, they came in 
 sight of the settlements on the River Chambly. During 
 the night, it being very dark, they came so near running 
 into a Hessian boat, that the ratthng of the muskets and 
 the conversation of the men were distindlly heard. Near 
 Chambly they lay all day in an old hedge. At sunset 
 part of them went up the river and the rest down, in 
 search of vessels to transport them across the river, and 
 found two canoes, one of which was set adrift, the other 
 being large enough for them all ; but, when it was too late 
 to recover them they found that the two axes they had 
 brought with them from St. Rosa, and which they much 
 needed, had gone down the Chambly in the floating canoe. 
 
96 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 After crossing the Chambly, they went a short distance, 
 and lay down for the night. 
 
 Thinking themselves now out of danger, they began 
 travelling by daylight, passing around the Canadian set- 
 tlements, with one exception, through which they boldly 
 marched armed with clubs. At dusk they came near a 
 British blockhouse, on the Missisque River, where, con- 
 cealing themselves until all was quiet in the blockhouse, 
 they made a raft and passed over the river. The opposite 
 shore being rocky and thickly covered with spruce, so 
 that it was difficult to move, they rested for the night, 
 within hearing of the fortress, piling up brush to conceal 
 their fire from the view of the garrison. Their clothes 
 were wet, and they passed an uncomfortable night, re- 
 suming their journey at the firing of the morning gun in 
 the fortress. They soon entered upon an extensive tradt 
 of low, moist land, covered with tamarack and a thick 
 growth of underbrush, which tore their pantaloons to 
 pieces. It was covered with soft, spongy moss, saturated 
 with water which was unfit for use. For two days they 
 travelled through this tradt, suffering much from thirst, 
 and then found more solid footing. Between this tradl 
 and Lake Magog the country was more agreeable, being 
 made up of uplands and cedar swamps. In these swamps, 
 which were difficult to pass through, they were some- 
 times compelled to spend the night. Captain Abeel, awak- 
 ing one night, heard what he thought was the yell of 
 Indians, when, quickly awaking his companions, they 
 covered their fire, and went separately into the brush. 
 All listened with eagerness, and to their great joy found 
 that it was only the hooting of an owl. 
 
 In four or five days after leaving the lowlands, they 
 reached the shore of Lake Magog. Here most of them 
 were for following the gravelly beach ; but Capt. Snyder 
 
And the Region Around. i^'j 
 
 opposed this course, fearing they might meet with Indi- 
 ans who frequented such places, but his objeftions being 
 overruled, they kept along by the lake from ten until 
 three, when, halting at a.brook to drink, Capt. Abeel said, 
 in a low tone, "There are Indians." In the distance they 
 saw the smoke of an Indian hut, and two dogs coming 
 towards them, which, much to their surprise, did not 
 bark. Each one taking the alarm, with the utmost speed 
 and effort climbed to the summit of a neighboring cliff, 
 but no one pursued them. For the sake of greater safety, 
 however, they kept some twenty-five feet apart, and trav- 
 elling until sunset, they slept at the same distance from 
 each other. Captain Snyder afterwards learned-that the 
 Indians of this hut had, in the forenoon of the same day, 
 gone in pursuit of Captain Philips, of Juniata, who with one 
 Roberts fled from St. Rosa the afternoon of the same 
 day with themselves. They thought, however, that one 
 Indian must have remained behind, as otherwise there 
 would have been neither smoke nor dogs at the hut. 
 
 They were now nearly out of provisions, and began to 
 suffer, living four days almost entirely upon spignet, until 
 they reached the Connecticut River, about thirty miles 
 above the upper Coos. Here, at a fire, Elias found the 
 thigh-bone of a moose, stripped of all but the sinews, 
 which had been left there the night previous by Indians 
 or hunters. He burned the bone and sinews, and ate them 
 for two days, carrying the bone in his pocket. After trav- 
 elling for some distance along the west side of th« river, 
 they crossed it, for the sake of avoiding the troubled state 
 of Vermont, and to arrive the sooner at the inhabited dis- 
 tiifts. The day after reaching the river they caught a few 
 trout, and young Snyder plunged in with his pack and 
 angling-rod, and attempted to swim across the river ; but 
 his strength failing, when nearly across, he sank and would 
 7 
 
98 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 have been drowned, but for a sudden effort which brought 
 him where he could wade ashore. For some time he lay 
 quite exhausted on the shore. This discouraged the others 
 from following him ; but they soon found a more favorable 
 place for crossing, and passed over. Not far from this 
 point they found the first traces of civilized inhabitants. 
 They ate blackberries, in a new field covered with them, 
 and some two miles beyond came to a log-house, the owner 
 of which was working in a field. Captain Snyder and 
 Abeel went towards him to inquire for provisions, while the 
 others entered the cabin and helped themselves to part of 
 a loaf of bread, which was all the provisions the poor man 
 had. When he came in soon after and looked for his 
 bread, on the shelf where he had left it, and could not find 
 it, he was not displeased, but said they were welcome. 
 The same evening they went about a mile further, to the 
 house of a man named Williams, whose family kindly gave 
 up to them their supper of hasty-pudding and moose-pie. 
 Here they remained all night ; -and in the evening several 
 of the neighbors came in, with a magistrate named Ames, 
 who, after examining them, furnished Captain Snyder with 
 a passport for himself and his comrades to the headquar- 
 ters of General Bailey, at the lower Coos. They were now 
 in New Hampshire, among a very humane and generous 
 people, who liberally supplied their wants. But such was 
 their appetite after enduring extreme hunger, that they 
 commonly ate six meals a day of light food, and thus made 
 small progress. Sunday, September 29, they reached Gen- 
 eral Bailey's headquarters, who received them with great 
 kindness. He ordered shoes to be made and mended for 
 them ; and there they remained two days, when Capt^n 
 Snyder, having been furnished with a horse by the Gen- 
 eral, left his companions and returned home through Mas- 
 sachusetts and Connefticut, crossing the Hudson River at 
 
And the Region Around. 99 
 
 Poughkeepsie. The others went by the way of Sunder- 
 land and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and crossed the Hudson 
 at Kinderhook. Captain Snyder reached home first, where 
 he found his relatives and friends living and in good health. 
 The joy of their meeting we need not attempt to describe. 
 
 In the narrative above, the names of Peter Short and 
 his son-in-law Peter Miller, of Woodstock, in Ulster 
 County, are found as captives and prisoners with the Sny- 
 ders in Canada ; Woodstock and Saugerties being adjoin- 
 ing towns, near the southern extreme of the Catskill Moun- 
 tains, so that the Snyders and their fellow-prisoners lived 
 within a few miles of each other when at home. At the 
 request of the author, Mr. James U. Emerick, a well- 
 known and intelligent resident of Woodstock, recently 
 made inquiries with regard to Short and Miller, and under 
 date of June 16, 1866, wrote as follows : 
 
 " Short and Miller were freed from their captivity in 
 Canada by an Indian named Joe Dewitt, to whom they 
 had shown kindness before their captivity. This Indian 
 requested them to wash their blackened faces, which had 
 been painted to prevent their friends from recognizing 
 them, if others from the same distrift should be taken pri- 
 soners. He then condufted them through the wilderness, 
 so that in due time they reached Woodstock in safety, 
 thankful to God who had preserved their lives, while ex- 
 posed to torture and death, from the merciless tories and 
 savage Indians. This information I obtained from Captain 
 John Vandebogart and James Wolven, aged inhabitants 
 of this town, who received it dir^flly from the Snyders, 
 who were with these men in Canada, and knew of the 
 manner of their liberation, as also from Short and Miller 
 themselves. There are in this town a number of young 
 men named Short and Miller, who are grandchildren of 
 those spoken of above." 
 
lOO The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 The account given in the narrative of the Snyders, as to 
 the reason why Short's face was painted black, is probably 
 the correft one, though the Indians commonly painted the 
 faces of their captives so as to resemble their own, when 
 near the white settlements, or where they did not wish 
 them to be known by their friends or others. 
 
 In the narrative above, Captain Wood, of Goshen, is 
 spoken of as the only survivor of the massacre of Mini- 
 sink. This may have been the impression among the 
 captives in Canada at the time, but can hardly be correal. 
 In Gordon's America, vol. Hi., p. 22, we read thus : " July 
 23, 1779, Colonel Brant, with sixty of his warriors and 
 twenty-seven white men, came suddenly upon Minisink, in 
 Orange County, New York, where they killed seven of the 
 inhabitants and made others captives. They burned ten 
 houses, twelve barns, a garr'son, and two ihills, and then 
 commenced their retreat. The militia from Goshen and 
 places adjacent, to the number of one hundred and forty- 
 nine, coUefled, pursued, and came up with them, when a 
 most bloody battle was fought. The Indians were finally 
 vidlorious, and thirty only of the one hundred and forty- 
 nine whites escaped. Some were carried into captivity, 
 and the rest were killed. Not being sufficiently cautious, 
 they fell into an ambush, and hence they fought at a great 
 disadvantage. 
 
 In 1 82 1 a county meeting was held, by which it was 
 voted that the bones of the slain should be collefted and 
 deposited under a suitable monument, at the same time 
 ordered to be erefted. .In 1822 the committee appointed 
 to coUeft the bones, " which had been exposed to the sun 
 and snows for forty-three years," had found those of forty- 
 four persons, which were with much formality publicly 
 interred. 
 
 We read also in the narrative of the Snyders, that while 
 
Aiid the Renon Around. loi 
 
 "a 
 
 they were in the Bevot in Montreal, a man by the name of 
 Brown, whose father had been killed by the Indians in Har- 
 persfield, New York, was anxious to kill a drunken Indian, 
 who had killed a Canadian, and who, having been thrust in 
 among them, insulted them by saying, " Me Yankee." 
 
 In Drake's " History and Biography of the Indians of 
 North America," page 588, we read, that, " in the spring 
 of 1780, Brant surprised Harpersfield with a company of 
 his warriors and a few tories. He took nineteen prison- 
 ers, and killed several others. August 2, he fell upon 
 Canajoharie with about four hundred mixed warriors, 
 killed sixteen people, took about fifty-five prisoners, chiefly 
 women and children ; killed or drove away about three 
 hundred cattle and horses ; burned fifty-three houses and 
 as many barns, besides out-houses, a new and elegant 
 church, a gristmill, and two garrisons." 
 
 Brant, the Indian Chief, holding the rank of colonel in 
 the British army, in his interview with the Snyders at Fort 
 Niagara, speaking of the region about Esopus, or Kings- 
 ton, and Saugerties, said, " That is my old fighting-ground." 
 Brant is said to have had an encampment or fortification 
 nearly west of where the Snyders lived, on the side of the 
 mountains north of the Plattekill Clove, from which he 
 could look out upon a wide extent of country below, and 
 decide where to descend and prey upon the inhabitants of 
 that region. 
 
 Brant, or Brandt, as his name is often spelled, was so 
 called from his Indian name, which signifies Brant, a spe- 
 cies of wild goose. He is said to have been born in 1742, 
 on the banks of the Ohio River, where his parents had gone 
 for a time. He was an Onondaga Indian, of the Mohawk 
 tribe, and the home of his family was Canajoharie Castle, 
 the central of the three castles of the Mohawks, in their 
 native valley. 
 
I02 The Catskill Mountaitts, 
 
 When he was thirteen years old he joined the Indian 
 forces under Sir William Johnson, a celebrated British 
 ofBcer, and Superintendent of the Indians in that region ; 
 and, when nineteen, was sent with several other Indian 
 youth by Johnson to Moor's Charity School, in Lebanon, 
 Conne6licut, under the care of the Rev. Dr. Wheelock, 
 where he was educated. 
 
 Brant's early teacher having been requested afterwards 
 by those in authority to use his influence with his former 
 pupil, with a view to secure his aid in favor of the Colo- 
 nies and against Great Britain, in our Revolutionary War, 
 he shrewdly reminded the reverend doflor that he had been 
 accustomed to hear him pray that we might be good sub- 
 jefts, might fear God, and honor the king. 
 
 In I77S, Brant went to England, where he received much 
 attention, and was thus probably led to take the side of 
 Great Britain in the war which had then just commenced. 
 Sir William Johnson was the British Agent of Indian 
 Affairs, and had secured great influence among the Indians 
 of the Six Nations by freely entertaining hundreds of them 
 at a time at his house at the village of Johnstown on the 
 Mohawk. He used also at certain times to dress like the 
 Indians ; and, being a widower, he had a sister of Brant as 
 a companion. His influence with the Indians was great 
 in leading them to aid the British in our Revolutionary 
 War, though he died in 1774, a year before the battle of 
 Bunker Hill. Those white savages, John and Walter But- 
 ler, natives of Connefticut, whose names are associated 
 with that of Brant in connexion with the Revolutionary 
 War, lived about four miles southeast of Johnstown, on the 
 same side of the Mohawk. To one of these Butlers the 
 Snyders refer in their narrative ; and the descendants of 
 Brant have tried to prove that he was much more humane 
 than the Butlers, which might well have been without say- 
 
A7id the Region Around. 103 
 
 ing much in his favor. Brant, too, claimed that he could 
 not restrain, as he would have done, his Indian warriors 
 from deeds of violence and blood. 
 
 In the summer and autumn of 1865, I had occasion to 
 prepare and deliver an address, which was published, giv- 
 ing an account of nearly thirty prominent clergymen and 
 laymen, who, fifty years before, had founded the Bible 
 Society of the County of Greene, the year before the 
 American Bible Society was organized. The only sur- 
 viving founder of this County Society was Mr. Henry 
 McKinstry, formerly a merchant of Catskill, and after- 
 wards connefted for many years with the New York Cus- 
 tom House, — a gentleman of intelligence, and of high 
 social and Christian standing, courtesy, and worth. His 
 father. Colonel John McKinstry, who lived near Hudson, 
 New York, was captain of a company in the unfortunate 
 invasion of Canada, by our troops in 1776. At the battle 
 of the Cedars, forty miles above Montreal, in May of that 
 year, in a severe engagement, Captain McKinstry was 
 wounded and left lying beside a tree, where he was taken 
 prisoner by the Indians. It is said that they intended to 
 torture him in their well-known savage way, and had made 
 preparations to do so, but that he having made masonic 
 signs to Brant, who had joined the free-masons when in 
 England, his life was thus saved. Brant, with other Bri- 
 tish officers, bought an ox which they presented to the 
 Indians in place of Captain McKinstry, in cooking and 
 eating which they had a great feast and carouse. 
 
 Ever after this Brant was a warm and devoted friend 
 of McKinstry, making him, to the close of his life, an 
 annual visit at his house near Hudson. Mr. Henry 
 McKinstry informed me that Brant strongly urged his 
 father to remove, and settle near him in Canada, offering 
 if he would do so to give him five hundred or one thou- 
 
I04 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 sand acres of land from the grant made to him by the 
 British Government after the close of the war. Mr. James 
 Powers, a prominent lawyer in Catskill, now^ more than 
 eighty years of age, told me that he was in the family and 
 office of Honorable Elisha Williams, of Hudson, a lawyer 
 of great eminence, from 1802 to 1806, and that Colonel 
 McKinstry used each year to come there with Brant to 
 dine. He wore at that time the common citizen's clothes 
 of the whites, and used to entertain those present by 
 specimens of Indian dances and other customs of his 
 race. He used also to attend the meetings of the Masonic 
 Lodge in Hudson. Mr. Henry McKinstry, who is a 
 brother-in-law of Mr. Powers, also told me that his father 
 once visited him at his house with Brant. 
 
 In the narratives of the captives taken by the Indians 
 to Canada, as already given, repeated allusions have been 
 made to General Sullivan's expedition against the Indians. 
 A few of the leading fafts connefled with this expedition 
 are as follows : The fearful massacres of the Indians 
 and tories at Wyoming and elsewhere led General Wash- 
 ington to send General Sullivan with twenty-five hun- 
 dred men into the Indian country to check and punish 
 them. Brant and Butler with six hundred Indians, and 
 Guy Johnson (a son-in-law of Sir William) with two hun- 
 dred tories, came out to meet Sullivan ; but August 29, 
 1779, at Newtown, now Elmira, on Tioga River, after a 
 fight of two hours, the tories and Indians were defeated 
 and put to flight. Forty villages were utterly destroyed 
 by Sullivan, no trace of vegetation being left on the 
 surface of the ground. All the cattle of the Indians were 
 either killed or driven off, many of which had been stolen 
 from the Americans. 
 
 After the Revolutionary War, in 1791 and at other 
 times, Brant used his great influence with the southern 
 
And the Region Around. 105 
 
 and western Indians, to induce them not to engage in 
 war against the United States, and in 1792 visited New 
 York and Philadelphia to see personal friends in those 
 cities, and to pay his respefts to General Washington, 
 then President of the United States. In the winter of 
 1779, Brant was married to the first of his three wives by 
 his companion-in-arms. Colonel John Butler, formerly a 
 justice of the peace, to a daughter of Colonel Croghan, a 
 British officer, by an Indian woman. Brant had lived with 
 this woman for some time before he was married. He 
 lived in English style, on the valuable traft of land 
 given him by George III., in a good two-story house at 
 the head of Lake Ontario, north of the beach which 
 separates the lake from Burlington Bay. His surviving 
 wife, however, would never fully conform to the usages 
 of civilized life, but after his death went to the Grand 
 River, and there lived with part of her children in a 
 wigwam, while others of them remained behind in the 
 comfortable dwelling of their father where he died, No- 
 vember 24, 1807, aged sixty-four years and eight months. 
 He was patient and resigned during his last sickness, and 
 was buried in Mohawk Village, on Grand River, by the 
 Episcopal Church he had built there, of which Christian 
 communion he was a member. 
 
 His sons, Joseph and Jacob, went in 1800 to Hanover, 
 New Hampshire, to be educated there in Dartmouth Col- 
 lege ; while John, the fourth son, who succeeded his fa- 
 ther as chief, with his sister, Elizabeth, for many years 
 hospitably entertained in the family mansion those who 
 called upon them there after their father's death. My 
 learned and venerable friend and recent neighbor. Rev. 
 Dr. Ostrander, of Saugerties, New York, who entered the 
 ministry of the Reformed Dutch Church in 1800, told me 
 that in 1810, he, in company with Rev. Dr. Sickles, for- 
 
ro6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 merly of Kinderhook, called on Brant's family, in their 
 home on Lake Ontario, where they were kindly received. 
 His son John visited England in 1822, and was chosen a 
 member of the Colonial Assembly of Upper Canada in 
 1832. 
 
 Dartmouth College began its existence in Hanover, 
 New Hampshire, in 1769, on the removal there of Moor's 
 Charity Schpol from Lebanon, Conneflicut, or rather, by 
 the removal there of Rev. Dr. Wheelock, principal of the 
 school, with twenty-four pupils, six of whom were Indians. 
 The school in Lebanon was incorporated and continued 
 there. Dr. Wheelock having died during our Revolu- 
 tionary War, his son John, then serving in the army, left 
 it, and took his father's place at the head of the college. 
 Joseph and Jacob Brant were in the family of James Whee- 
 lock, a brother of the President, and did well as to con- 
 duft and study, until in the spring of 1802 a quarrel arose 
 between the young Brants, and Joseph left college to re- 
 turn there no more. Jacob also went home, but returned 
 in the fall, and was in college some time longer. Jacob 
 married a Mohawk girl in 1804. Isaac, the oldest son of 
 Brant, died of a wound from his father's hand, which he 
 richly deserved. John Brant was in most of the battles 
 of the war of 18 12, was aftive and brave ; and when in 
 England, in 1821, he convinced Thomas Campbell, the 
 poet, that he had done great injustice to his father, Joseph 
 Brant, in his poem " Gertrude of Wyoming," inasmuch 
 as Brant was not then at Wyoming at aU. Campbell 
 acknowledged his error in an edition of his poems pub- 
 lished soon afterwards. Elizabeth Brant married her 
 cousin, Mr. Kerr, of Niagara, a grandson of Sir William 
 Johnson and Molly Brant ; and they lived in the family 
 mansion on Lake Ontario. 
 
'And the Region Around. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Osterhouts. — Peter Osterhout, Esq. — Gilbert Osterhout. — His Age, 
 Cause of His Death. — Indians and Negroes. — Family Residence. — The 
 French War.— Adventure of Mrs. Osterhout.— A Faithful Dog.— The Wo- 
 men of Early Times.— Gilbert Osterhout. — He Kills Two Indians. — Ad- 
 ventures with General Broadstreet and Lieutenant StilweU. — Encounter with 
 an Indian. — Peter's Father. — He Enlists in the Army. — Tories of Cats- 
 kill. — Battles at Saratoga. — Hard Fighting. — Colonel Van Cortland. — 
 General Arnold. — General Frazer Shot by Murphy. — Trouble with In- 
 dians. — Its final Result. — A Kite and Cat — Schoharie County during 
 the Revolutionary War. — Council of Safety. — Colonel Huston. — Cap- 
 tain Hager. — Colonel Harper. — Schoharie Forts. — Captain Patrick. — 
 Colonel Butler. — Tories Shot — Colonel Butler's Raid on Vroomansland. — 
 Fight near Sharon Springs. — Doxtater. — Colonel Willet. — Brant at Vroo- 
 mansland. — Major Becker. — ^Tories Remove to Canada. — Release of Prison- 
 ers. — Murphy and Osterhout — Their Escape. — Mxuphy's Revenge. — 
 Battle of Newtown. — Daniel Shays. — David Williams. — A False Alarm. — 
 Brant at Cobleskill. — Howe's Cave. — Sharon Springs. — Hotels, Baths, etc. — 
 Gebherd's Cave. — Murder of Truax. — Statistics of the County. 
 
 I NOW avail myself of the aid of my worthy and 
 venerable friend, Peter Osterhout, Esq., a native 
 of Catskill, now a retired merchant of Schoharie, 
 and a pillar in the Reformed Dutch -Church there. As 
 both his father and grandfather were famous as warriors 
 against the early enemies of our country, I wrote to him 
 for information, and received a long and interesting letter, 
 most of which was a record of before unwritten history 
 of the pioneers of this region, their hardships, sufferinys, 
 earnest and fearless daring, and their great sacrifices for 
 the good of their country. Mr. Osterhout writes as 
 follows : 
 
 " The name of my grandfather was Gilbert Osterhout ; 
 
io8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 or, as pronounced in Dutch, Giesbert Oosterhoudt. I can 
 give but a few incidents in his life, which I heard from 
 his only son, my deceased father, and from other aged 
 persons long since dead, as he died about the time of my 
 birth, which was in 1790, then not far from seventy years 
 of age. His death was caused - by his having been 
 violently pushed from a wagon by a man in East Camp, 
 to whom he had willed his property of the value of some 
 two thousand dollars, on condition that he should support 
 him during his life. He was a large man, with a powerful 
 frame, and resolute and determined in all his aftions. The 
 negroes and domestic Indians received no mercy at his 
 hands when they had given him provocation. There were 
 at that time a considerable number of Indians in the 
 vicinity of Catskill, planting corn and beans on the Cats- 
 kill flats, for several miles on both sides of the creek. 
 Many of them were quite friendly with the whites, mostly 
 Dutch, while others were the reverse, given to strong 
 drink, quarrelsome and revengeful. My grand-parents 
 lived at the bend of the road, between Mr. Plank's and 
 the late residence of Reuben Palmer, now occupied by 
 Dr. Keys. 
 
 " I have a faint recoUeflion of the death of my grand- 
 mother, when I was two or three years old. When her 
 husband was absen* in the war between the English and 
 the French and Indians in Canada and elsewhere, from 
 1754 to 1757, my father being then not more than a year 
 old, an Indian named Rube, who lived near, and raised 
 corn on the west side of the creek, on the flats opposite 
 the Van Vechten farm, used to call at my grandmother's 
 and leave his jug of whiskey there, to be called for when 
 he wanted it. One evening, just as it was first dark, a 
 knock called her to the door, and she asked, " Who is 
 there ? " The reply was " Rube ; " and he said that he 
 
And the Region Around. 109 
 
 wanted his jug of whiskey. The voice did not sound like 
 Rube's, and she hesitated as to unfastening the door. 
 But, as he insisted that it was Rube after his whiskey, 
 she partly opened the door, when she saw a large, strange 
 negro there. They tried to close the door again, but he 
 pushed it open with violence, and rushing into the house, 
 took a seat by the fire. She was much frightened, and 
 not a word was said, as she walked across the room 
 several times. She conjeftured what his objeft was in 
 coming there, was looking around the room for a weapon 
 of defense, and at last recoUeiSted that there was a clasp- 
 knife in her pocket hanging on a chair. Just as she laid 
 hold of it the negro sprang upon and seized her, when 
 she screamed, and a large dog she had rushed in at 
 the door, and seizing the negro by his throat, there was 
 a severe struggle between them. The negro finally extri- 
 cated himself and rushed out of the door, followed by the 
 dog, who again laid hold of him. At last he got loose, 
 and rushed down a ravine near the house, followed by 
 the dog, urged on by the voice of his mistress. She then 
 fastened the door, and taking my father, then an infant, in 
 her arms, went to the second floor, drew up the ladder by 
 which she had climbed there after her, and with the child 
 in her lap and a cutlass in her hand, kept watch all night 
 at the window. The negro prowled around a long time, as 
 was evident by the furious barking of the dog, but 
 finally, towards day, went away, and was never seen or 
 heard of in that region again." Thus have we in this 
 narrative another of the numerous hitherto unpublished 
 and traditional sketches of what was done and suffered 
 by the women of our American Revolution, and earlier 
 than that, in their lonely and unprotefted, and often 
 forest homes, when their husbands were far away fight- 
 ing for their liberties and rights. 
 
no The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Mr. Osterhout further writes as follows : " I have heard 
 it said that my grandfather had many encounters with 
 the Indians, and that they regarded him with fear. While 
 in Canada, the troops of which he was one were surprised 
 by a large party of Frenchmen and savages and defeated ; 
 some were killed and wounded, while the rest scattered 
 and fled in different direftions. It was winter ; the snow 
 was deep ; and many of the Indians had snow-shoes, which 
 gave them greatly the advantage over those whom they 
 pursued, by keeping them from sinking in the snow. My 
 grandfather, like those with him, ran for his life ; and, while 
 doing so, suddenly came near two powerful Indians, who 
 saw his approach, stepped a few feet apart, and stood still. 
 He saw that he could not escape, and having made a motion 
 of surrender by reversing his musket, he came between 
 them as though to give himself up to them, when, with a 
 sudden and powerful backward blow with his elbows, he 
 knocked them both down ; and as their snow-shoes raised 
 their feet when they were down considerably above the 
 snow, hence they could not easily get up, so that having 
 beat out the brains of both of them with his musket, he 
 made good his retreat. 
 
 " He served as a soldier through the whole both of the 
 French and the Revolutionary wars. 
 
 " To show the charafter of the man, I will relate an inci- 
 dent which I had from my father and others. During the 
 French War, part of the English and Provincial Army 
 was for a time quartered at Albany, waiting for the build- 
 ing of boats, or batteaux, as they were called, with which 
 to transport troops and their baggage over rivers and 
 lakes in their invasion of Canada. These troops were 
 under the command of General Broadstreet, a British offi- 
 cer. My grandfather, who was a carpenter by trade, was 
 captain of the batteaux superintending their construction. 
 
And the Region Around. 1 1 1 
 
 Broadstreet, whose quarters were on the hill where the 
 Capitol now is, was in the habit of daily walking down to 
 where the boats were being built, to see what progress 
 was made. One day he asked my grandfather an absurd 
 and impertinent question, who answered him rather tartly, 
 giving offense to the General, who raised his cane and 
 struck him on the head, in return for which my grandfather 
 knocked him dowil with his fist. The General rose from 
 the ground and went off in great wrath, cursing and swear- 
 ing that he should be punished for the assault. No sooner 
 had he gone than my grandfather was urged to make him- 
 self scarce, to take to his heels, and thus avoid being 
 arrested, and consequently hung or shot, as, by British 
 martial law, for a subordinate to assault his superior was 
 punishable with death. He refused to leave, however, 
 saying that Broadstreet had struck him without cause, and 
 that in such cases he always struck back again, regardless 
 of consequences. Soon a sergeant with a guard arrested 
 him and marched him to the General's quarters, who told 
 him to come in and take a seat. On a table were some 
 bottles of liquor. The General poured out two glasses, 
 took one himself, and told my grandfather to drink the 
 other, which was done. He then told him he was a good 
 fellow, and to go about his business. This unexpected 
 result so affefted him that he burst into tears, and swore 
 that he would shed the last drop of his blood to defend 
 the General in battle or elsewhere. The effedt on the 
 troops was eleftrical when they heard what had taken 
 place, and a loud shout was given for General Broadstreet. 
 "A similar case occurred during the Revolutionary War. 
 My father stated to me, that one morning, in passing the 
 guardhouse, he saw his father confined there as a prisoner. 
 On inquiring of him what he had done, he said that Lieu- 
 tenant Stilwell had used insulting language to him, and 
 
112 The Catskill Mountams, 
 
 cursed him, and when he returned the same epithet which 
 had been before applied to himself, the Lieutenant struck 
 him with his cane, whereupon he knocked him down with 
 his feet. My father went to his colonel, Van Cortlandt, 
 and stated the fafts to him, when, having ordered the 
 parties before him, and finding that Stilwell could not 
 deny the truth of what has been stated, the Colonel gave 
 him a severe rei^rimand, told him that he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself for striking an old man, and that if he 
 was guilty of such an outrage again he would have him 
 cashiered, and then added : ' As to you, Daddy Oster- 
 hout, go to your quarters, and attend to your business.' 
 
 " There was, after the Revolutionary War, a large, pow- 
 erful Indian hovering about Catskill, who one day broke 
 the lock of the chain by which my grandfather's canoe 
 was fastened to a tree, and took it to go a-fishing, for 
 which its owner gave him a severe thrashing. Many 
 years after, my grandfather, one New- Year's morning, 
 was sitting by the fire in the kitchen of Mr. Salisbury, 
 grandfather of General Salisbury, of Catskill, when sud- 
 denly the big Indian walked up to him, and striking his 
 right hand violently on his breast, by way of defiance, 
 said, in Dutch, ' Giesbert, I am a man.' The reply was, 
 ' Yes, a thundering man,' and a blow, which knocked the 
 Indian into the fire, by which he was badly burned, and 
 was glad to make his escape. He thought that my grand- 
 father being then an old man, he could easily punish him 
 for the beating he had given him years before. He 
 found, however, that he had waked up the wrong passen- 
 ger. 
 
 " At the commencement of the Revolutionary War my 
 father was learning the blacksmith's trade of a man 
 
 named R , who was captain of the militia, and had at 
 
 his house the powder and ball for his company. He pro- 
 
And the Region Arotmd. 113 
 
 fessed to be a Whig, but was in fa6t a Tory. My father 
 was sixteen years old when he enlisted in the army, and 
 it was brought about as follows : One evening, about 
 dark, a company of thirty or forty men, with their faces 
 
 blackened, and disguised as Indians, came to R 's 
 
 house and demanded of him the powder and ball of his 
 company. He at first denied that the ammunition was in 
 his house ; but at length secret signals passed between 
 
 R and the captain of the tories, which were observed 
 
 by my father, and then part of the tories rushed up stairs, 
 seized the ammunition, and all of them left. My father 
 had a loaded shot-gun hanging on a beam in the house, 
 
 which he seized, and rushed to the door. R demanded 
 
 where he was going ; the reply was, " To shoot some of 
 
 those tories." R forbade his going ; and his wife who 
 
 was unwell made a great outcry, saying that if they were 
 molested they would come back, and murder them all. 
 So he gave up his plan of shooting, and the next morning 
 went to Catskill Village and enlisted. He then marched 
 to Saratoga, was in the desperate battles with Burgoyne's 
 army, and in nearly all the important battles of the Revo- 
 lution, including the siege and capture of Cornwallis and 
 his army at Yorktown. 
 
 " At Saratoga he was in the regiment of Colonel Van _ 
 Cortland, a brave and excellent officer. At the first battle 
 of Saratoga, at Stillwater, I think it was, the regiment was 
 marched out, consisting then of only one hundred and 
 fifty men, some being sick and others absent on scouting 
 parties. When about to engage in battle a cannon-ball 
 struck dire6lly in front of him, throwing the dirt in all 
 direflions, and so frightening his horse that he reared 
 and threw him on the ground in such a way that all sup- 
 posed that he was killed. He jumped up, however, say- 
 ing, 'Don't be frightened, my lads : I ,am not hurt, and 
 8 
 
114 The Catskill Momitains, 
 
 will lead you on foot into action. My men, advance!' 
 A hard-fought battle it was, the same ground having 
 been repeatedly taken by the British and Americans, 
 each army alternately advancing and retreating ; and it 
 turned out a drawn battle, though the Americans had the 
 best of it. When the regiment came out of the battle, 
 forty-seven men, or nearly one-third of their whole num- 
 ber, were either killed or wounded. Both of my father's 
 file-men on each side of him were shot down. For a 
 feather, he and many others had twigs of laurel in their 
 hats. His was shot off close to his head ; but he was not 
 hurt in any of the many adlions during the war. The 
 second battle was still more obstinately contested. My 
 father said that General Arnold was rushing over the 
 field in every direftion, like a madman, ordering soldiers 
 promiscuously to follow him. It was by his orders that a 
 party of riflemen was led where they could have a fair 
 shot at General Frazer, the second in command in the 
 British army there. Arnold said of that officer, ' He is a 
 host in himself, and must be brought down.' The cele- 
 brated Timothy Murphy" (the great Indian-killer, from 
 Schoharie County, spoken of elsewhere in this work) 
 " was one of these riflemen ; and it was believed that he 
 ghot General Frazer. 
 
 " After the surrender of Burgoyne, part of the army were 
 for a time quartered at Scheneftady, and while there my 
 father was employed in repairing muskets, having form- 
 erly worked as a blacksmith. Among the troops were 
 quite a number of Oneida and other friendly Indians. 
 One day, while going to his shop, he met with a squaw 
 richly dressed, with a plenty of silver and glass trinkets on 
 her blanket, leggings, and moccasins ; and from mere wan- 
 tonness, being but a boy, he jumped into a mud-puddle 
 near her, and bespattered her all over with mud. She 
 
And the Region Around. 115 
 
 was very angry ; and, soon after he reached his shop, two 
 large Indians came in, and with a loud noise and angry 
 gestures, threatened to strike him with their tomahawks. 
 He told them to be off, or he would beat out their brains ; 
 and, seizing his sledge-hammer, he sprang upon them, as 
 if to strike them, when they took to their heels and ran 
 away. Two years afterwards, when with our troops, he 
 was in a tavern, where he saw one of these Indians, who 
 recognized him, and, drawing his knife, rushed upon him. 
 At this moment a man who was near spoke in a loud 
 voice to the Indian, who turned his head to look at the 
 speaker, when my father quickly knocked the Indian 
 down with his feet, and pounded him until he was tired, 
 and left him, which ended the matter. The Osterhouts, 
 father and son, seem to have been quite handy with their 
 feet as well as with their hands. 
 
 "While besieging Comwallis at Yorktown, some of our 
 soldiers, of whom my father was one, made a large kite, to 
 the tail of which they tied a basket, with a large tomcat 
 fastened in it, and a lantern, lighted with oil, attached to 
 the kite. One dark night, when the wind was blowing a 
 brisk breeze direftly towards Yorktown, the kite was sent 
 up to a great height, the cat meanwhile screaming ' yeow, 
 yeow,' until it was direftly over the town, when they let 
 the cord go, and the shining, musical kite rapidly descend- 
 ed, to the no small amazement of the British, and much to 
 the amusement of our own troops who were concerned 
 in and who saw what was done." 
 
 As Schoharie County was the scene of many Indian 
 battles and bloody encounters during the Revolutionary 
 War, some of them may here be noticed, as the Schoharie 
 mountains are a part of the Catskill group, some of them 
 rising as high as three thousand feet, while the brave and 
 hardy pioneers of all that region, and more especially of 
 
Ii6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the counties of Schoharie and Greene, were in early times 
 exposed to like dangers, and made united and persevering 
 efforts to defend themselves against a common enemy, and 
 to secure for themselves and their children the blood- 
 bought heritage of civil and religious liberty and right. 
 
 The record of events referred to above may be briefly 
 stated thus : In 1774 a Council of Safety viras formed. In 
 1776 Colonel James Huston enlisted tories at Loonen- 
 burgh. In 1777 the Schoharie militia were called out, 
 under Captain Hager ; Colonel Huston and twenty others 
 were arrested, and Huston was hung. August 10 of that 
 year, there was an engagement between a party of Ameri- 
 cans, under Colonel John Harper, and the tories, under 
 Captain McDonald, at Brakabeen, where the tories were 
 defeated, and fled. In the autumn of 1777 the middle 
 fort was built, and the upper and lower forts were begun. 
 The lower fort was the old stone church, afterwards 
 changed into an arsenal. May 8, 1778, the battle of 
 Cobleskill took place, in which Captain Patrick and twenty- 
 two men were killed. In July of this year, Colonel Wil- 
 liam Butler, with three companies of Morgan's riflemen, 
 was stationed in Schoharie, and several tories recruiting 
 for the British army were shot. In August, 1779, Colonel 
 Butler joined Sullivan's expedition against the western 
 Indians, when Murphy probably went with him, as he 
 figures largely in that connexion. August 9, 1780, a party 
 of seventy-three Indians and three tories attacked those 
 living at Vroomansland, killed five, and took thirty prison- 
 ers. July 9, 1781, there was an engagement two miles 
 east of Sharon Springs, between a party of tories and 
 Indians, under Doxtater, and Americans under Colonel 
 Willet, in which the tories were defeated, with a loss of 
 forty killed. During the same month, several persons 
 working in harvest-fields were surprised ; one escaped, 
 
And the Region Around. 117 
 
 and the others were carried captives to Canada. In 0(5lo- 
 ber, 1781, three men in Sharon were taken by the Indians, 
 and carried to Canada. 06lober 24, 1781, Brant, with 
 sixty or seventy Indians, killed Isaac Vrooman, at Vroo- 
 mansland, when a party of Americans, under Captain 
 Hager, rallied, and the Indians retreated to Utsyantha 
 Lake, where there was an engagement ; but part of the 
 Americans, under Captain Hale, having fled, those remain- 
 ing were forced to retreat, and the Indians escaped. July 
 26, 1782, several tories and twenty-two Indians attempted 
 to capture Major Becker in Foxes' Creek Valley ; but he 
 and his family defended his house so bravely, that the 
 Indians retreated. Several persons were murdered by 
 them in their retreat, and a number of the Indians were 
 shot. There were so many tories in Schoharie, that a 
 cruel civil war was carried on there, and at the close of the 
 war many famihes removed to Canada, where grants of 
 land were made to tliem by the British Government, oppo- 
 site to St. Lawrence County, in this State. December 26, 
 1784, many who had been taken to Canada as prisoners 
 were released on Lake Champlain, and returned to their 
 homes. 
 
 Here I resume the narrative of Mr. Osterhout, as fol- 
 lows : " Murphy was with General Sullivan in his expe- 
 dition to the western part of the State, as was also my 
 father, who said that he never knew Murphy to be fright- 
 ened but once. He was in the party of Lieutenant Boyd, 
 on a scout, in advance of the army, when they were sud- 
 denly surrounded by several hundred Indians. All but 
 two of the party, who were Murphy and my father, were 
 killed. These two ran for their lives, and reached Sulli- 
 van's camp in safety, Murphy having retained his rifle, 
 while my father dropped his to enable him to outrun the 
 Indians. Murphy then looked as white in his face as a 
 
Ii8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 sheet. About two hours after, the army reached the place 
 of the surprise and butchery, and found the men, who had 
 been shot, stripped, and scalped, lying on the ground. 
 After that no Indian within reach of Murphy's rifle, male 
 or female, escaped his unerring aim. At Newtown, now 
 Elmira, August 2.9, 1779, there was an engagement of two 
 hours between Sullivan's troops and those of the British 
 under Johnson, Butler, and Brant, whose fort was taken, and 
 many of them were killed ; after which Sullivan met with 
 no resistance. The army, after this, were employed sev- 
 eral days in destroying the corn, fruit-trees, and wigwams 
 of the Indians. After the war. Murphy and his wife Hved 
 in Schoharie County, and died here in the town of Mid- 
 dleburgh. Some of his sons and grandsons still live in 
 the county. After his return from the war, it is said that 
 many Indians suddenly disappeared, and were believed to 
 have been shot by Murphy." The shooting of Indians 
 and tories in that region, in a secret manner, after the war, 
 led others who were there to flee elsewhere for safety. 
 
 Daniel Shays, who was a captain in our Revolutionary 
 Army, and the leader of the insurredlion in Massachusetts 
 which bears his name, lived in the town of Livingstonville, 
 in Schoharie County ; and in 1805, David Williams, one 
 of the captors of Major Andrfe, removed there from South 
 Salem, New York, and bought a farm of General Shays, on 
 which he resided, much esteemed, until his death, August 
 2, 1831. 
 
 The extracts from Mr. Osterhout's interesting and in- 
 struftive record will be closed with a sketch, — a single 
 incident more: "In December, 1780, my father was out 
 on a scout, when, at break of day one morning, he came to a 
 large field, in which there were about a thousand horses 
 running loose, feeding on the scanty herbage. These 
 horses belonged to our cavalry. In one corner of the 
 
And the Region Around. 1 19 
 
 field he found a horse-fiddle " (an instrument making a 
 loud noise, like a watchman's rattle). " He gave it several 
 rapid turns, which frightened the horses, and caused them 
 to run towards the camp, over the frozen ground, making 
 a thundering noise. Alarm guns were fired ; Washington 
 and his aids mounted their horses, it having been rumored 
 that the British Light Horse intended to surprise our army 
 and capture Washington, as they had before taken Gen- 
 eral Lee. When the horses came near the camp, it was 
 found to be a false alarm, and quiet was restored. When 
 my father reached his quarters, he was closely questioned 
 as to the cause of the fright of the horses, but very pru- 
 dently affefted to be wholly ignorant with regard to it." 
 
 In the town of Cobleskill, in Schoharie County, there 
 was an engagement between a company of militia and 
 a large Indian force under Brant, May 31, 1778. The 
 Americans, numbering forty-five men, were drawn into an 
 ambuscade and defeated. When retreating, five soldiers 
 sought protedlion in a house which was surrounded by 
 the Indians and burned, the soldiers perishing in the 
 flames. The delay thus occasioned gave the rest of the 
 company and the inhabitants near there time to escape. 
 Twenty-two Americans, and about the same number of 
 Indians were killed. 
 
 Howe's Cave, in the east part of Cobleskill, five miles 
 from Schoharie Court-house, is a place of much interest. 
 It was discovered by Lester Howe in 1842. Its entrance 
 is about fifty feet above the Cobleskill Creek. After pass- 
 ing through several spacious rooms, one of which, called 
 " the Chapel," is sixty or seventy feet long by twenty 
 wide and twenty or thirty high ; then, crawling through a 
 passage two hundred feet long, there is a sheet of water 
 thirty feet long, twenty wide, and ten deep. Beyond this 
 point the cavern has a number of large rooms and ex- 
 
120 The Catskill Mountaitts, 
 
 tends several miles, much of the way along a brook. 
 Stalaftites of a large size have been found there: The 
 sulphur and chalybeate springs in Sharon are places of 
 fashionable resort, and there are interesting caves near 
 them. These sulphur springs, which are much like those 
 in Virginia, are in a ravine, the principal one boiling up 
 from the bed of a small stream, and yielding an abundant 
 supply. There are smaller springs of the same kind near. 
 There is a pretty cascade one fourth of a mile from the 
 Shower House ; and fossil leaves and moss, in great per- 
 feftion, are easily obtained around the springs. The 
 waters are celebrated for the cure of cutaneous and other 
 troublesome diseases. The Pavilion, a magnificent hotel, 
 was built there by a company in New York, in 1836, on 
 an eminence near the springs, and with other houses near, 
 is much frequented. There are now eight hotels there 
 and a number of private boarding-houses. The Pavilion, 
 the Eldridge House, Congress Hall, Union, and Sharon 
 House, are the principal hotels. The Springs are white 
 sulphur and magnesia, and there are extensive bathing 
 houses, with warm and cold sulphur baths. Tliere are ac- 
 commodations for two thousand guests. Sharon is forty- 
 five miles from Albany, and may be reached by the Central 
 Railroad to Palatine Bridge, or by the Susquehanna Rail- 
 road to Cobleskill. 
 
 Gebhard's Cave, formerly called Ball's Cave, is four 
 miles east of Schoharie Court-house, and was first ex- 
 plored in 1 831 ; a small boat having been let down into 
 it, with which to move about. The entrance is funnel- 
 shaped, twelve feet in diameter. It is in the midst of a 
 forest, and there is a descent seventy feet deep, nearly 
 perpendicular, through a natural chimney in the massive 
 rock, in which there is now a substantial ladder. Then 
 there is a descent of thirty feet more by a craggy way and 
 
And the Region Around. 121 
 
 another ladder. After this, a passage ten feet wide, thirty 
 long, and, in places, not more than three feet high, and 
 arched overhead, while on its right issues a stream of 
 pure water from an opening three feet wide and fifteen 
 inches high ; then in a small boat, with a torch in hand, 
 at first reclining, and then able to stand, pushing along by 
 projeaing rocks, one passes fourteen natural dams about 
 four inches thick on the top, in passages eight or ten feet 
 wide and of an equal height, with water from ten to thirty 
 feet deep, the water trickling over these dams into a small 
 lake, near which is a room fifty feet square, and beyond it 
 a stream leading to a lake four hundred feet long, eight or 
 ten wide, from six to thirty feet deep, and one hundred 
 feet below the surface of the earth, which a breeze never 
 rufHed and on which the sun never shone. The arched 
 limestone over this lake is, in some places, from twenty to 
 thirty feet high. At the south-west end of the lake is an 
 enlarged outlet and a rotunda fifteen feet in diameter and 
 forty feet high in its centre, with a vaulted roof and a con- 
 cave floor. Beyond the rotunda is a low, narrow passage 
 several hundred feet long. Many rare minerals of much 
 beauty and value are found in the cave, but bats are its 
 only living inhabitants. 
 
 Early in the history of Schoharie County, a man named 
 Vrooman, living in what is now the town of Fulton, left 
 his house and farm, during the winter, under the care of 
 one Truax, a hired man, with a negro named Motor, and 
 his wife Mary, to assist him. One evening Truax, hav- 
 ing in hunting shot some pigeons, gave them to Mary to 
 dress and cook for his breakfast. After dressing them, 
 she put the knife, covered with blood, in her pocket. The 
 next morning she rose, and, having prepared for break- 
 fast, went "to call Truax, when she found him in his bed 
 murdered by having his throat cut from ear to ear. The 
 
122 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 negroes were arrested, and as she had the bloody knife in 
 her pocket, and her husband would say nothing, they 
 were tried for the murder in Albany, and publicly burned 
 there. Many years after, a man named Moore, who left 
 Schoharie for Pennsylvania soon after these events, being 
 on his death-bed, tortured with remorse, and having fear- 
 ful visions of ghastly wounds, flowing blood, and bodies 
 writhing in the crackling flames, confessed that he and 
 the negro murdered Truax, having entered the house 
 through the large, low chimney, and that Mary knew 
 nothing of the deed of blood. 
 
 Schoharie County has an area of 675 square miles, 
 33,519 inhabitants ; and in i860 its produfts were : grain, 
 1,028,881 bushels ; hay, 48,774 tons ; potatoes, 190,432 
 bushels; apples, 222,182 bushels; butter, 1,832,257 
 pounds ; and cheese, 71,016 pounds. There were, in 
 i860, 137 more males than females in the county. 
 
CAUTERSKILL FALLS. 
 
And the Region Around. 123 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Wild Beasts in the Mountains. — Early Hunters and their Adventures. — John 
 Pierson. — Deer Hunting. — Their Haunts. — Wolves, — Benjamin Peck. — Paul 
 Peck. — Revolutionary Service. — Burning of Kingston. — Success in hunting 
 and trapping Deer and Wolves. — Minister-hunteis. — Bear and Cubs. — 
 Hezekiah Myers. — William Travis. — A Bear shot — One in Shandaken. — 
 Colonel Lawrence. — Tame Bears. — James Powers, Esq. — Bear Feasts. — 
 Sons of Colonel Lawrence. — Bears in winter. — One at Schutt's. — Female 
 Bears. — Bears weather-wise. — Beating one. — Their dens. — Colonel Law- 
 rence's Son and a Bear. — Hard to kill. — Frederick Sax. — ^A Hard Fight — 
 Close Hugging. — Frederick Layman. — Bear and Dogs. — A Bad Tumble. — 
 Hard Scratching. — Hand-to-hand Fight. — Evert Lawrence. — Layman down. 
 — A Bear Family. — Cubs tamed. — Winter Sleep. — Bear Day. — Proofe of It. — 
 Bear Meat — Log Traps. — Bears near the Mountain House. — Scoring Trees. 
 — Mrs. B. and her Cats. — Their Escape. — Bears and Berries. — Bears in 
 Maine. 
 
 THE deep, dark, and widespread forests, the high, 
 rough mountain cliffs, the wild ravines and caves 
 of the Catskill Mountains, made them, from 
 early times, a chosen and favorite resort of lynx, panther, 
 wolves, bears, deer, and large and enormous snakes. A 
 volume might be filled with the adventures of early hunt- 
 ers in this region, some of which I will here describe, as 
 related to me by them and their children. 
 
 Among the most celebrated of these early hunters were 
 the Piersons, of Kaatsban, the Hummels, of Blue Moun- 
 tain, Benjamin Peck, of Palensville, and Frederick Sax, 
 of Kiskatom, though he lived, in early life, near West 
 Camp, in Saugerties. John Pierson would camp out 
 alone, for two or three weeks at a time, on and near 
 Roundtop, in Cairo, killing fifteen or twenty deer during 
 the time. There was a large laurel swamp on the moun- 
 tains, near the base of the South Mountain, where deer 
 
124 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 fed when snow was deep. Some would not eat their 
 flesh when they fed on laurel, though others did. They 
 were killed mostly from May or June until January. 
 There was a great run or track for deer, near the upper 
 end of the Cauterskill Clove, and along the ravine near 
 the Falls, below the Laurel House. Hunters here, as 
 elsewhere, had favorite stands, where they concealed 
 themselves, and shot deer as they were driven past them 
 by the dogs. Wolves used also to chase deer until they 
 were overcome with fatigue, and then kill and eat them. 
 Hence wolves and deer left this region about the same 
 time, more than thirty years since, having from an early 
 date been very numerous. The wolves were quite trouble- 
 some and destruftive to domestic animals, so that it was 
 often necessary closely to confine sheep, swine, and 
 young cattle at night. 
 
 Benjamin Peck came to Palensville, from Litchfield, 
 Conneflicut, about the year 1796. He was brought up 
 by his uncle, Paul Peck, who was a famous trapper and 
 hunter, sometimes going as far as Canada in pursuit of 
 wild animals, for the sake of their fur and skins. Benja- 
 min Peck served in the army through all the Revolution- 
 ary War, having gone early to Boston, and was afterwards 
 enlisted in the cavalry regiment of Colonel Sheldon, of 
 Litchfield, and was with him on the Hudson River when 
 Esopus was burned, our forces being then opposite the 
 place, and wishing to cross over and relieve it, but they 
 were prevented from doing so by two British ships of 
 war, which were lying in the river. What he then saw 
 and learned of the abundance of game in the mountains 
 may have led him, at a later date, to remove here. From 
 his son, of the same name, who came here with his father 
 when seven years old, and is now living in Palensville, at 
 the age of seventy-six, I learned the following fafts : 
 
And the Region Around. 125 
 
 The first year they were here Mr. Peck killed some 
 seven or eight wolves, seventeen bears, and seventy-three 
 deer, which he secured, besides others which were mor- 
 tally wounded but fled beyond his reach. At first he 
 practised what is called "still hunting," stealing on game 
 unawares or watching for them where they passed along, 
 without the aid of dogs. He soon procured a large and 
 strong bear-trap with steel springs and sharp teeth like 
 nails, with which he caught many bears, but did not use 
 the log or fall-trap and cage, with which bears are still 
 caught on the mountains. His steel trap he used without 
 bait, in a narrow, rocky ravine, near the top of South 
 Mountain, through which bears passed in coming down 
 from the evergreen woods, near the summit of the moun- 
 tain, where they had their dens, to the oak woods below, 
 to feed on acorns. The rocky ravine through which the 
 bears passed was so narrow that they could not well avoid 
 getting in the trap. 
 
 One day while hunting north of the Clove, on the 
 mountain, a deer came along heated and fatigued, pur- 
 sued as he supposed by his dog ; when, having shot it, 
 and, as his custom was, having loaded his gun imme- 
 diately, an immense wolf followed on the track of the 
 deer, which he also shot. At another time Mr. Peck 
 met a bear, with two cubs, which had seriously injured 
 and driven off his dogs with the exception of one,, 
 which was very staunch and of an imported breed, which 
 followed by scent, but more resembled a greyhound 
 than a bloodhound. This dog he called away, when 
 the bear made a rush upon him, -when, waiting until 
 she was about a foot from the muzzle of his gun, he shot 
 her in the breast, and the ball passed through the whole 
 length of her body, suddenly ending her days. Mr. Peck 
 continued to hunt until he died, in Palensville, where his 
 
126 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 son now lives, in 1820, in the sixty-fourth year of his 
 age. 
 
 Mr. Hezekiah Myers, aged ninety, hunted some in his 
 early days, and was familiar with the hunting adventures 
 of others. He was once with a hunting party on the 
 mountains when the dogs drove a bear so near him that 
 he could have struck him with an axe which he had in his 
 hand ; but as he had, besides this, only a pistol, he feared 
 to strike him, though many of the old bear-hunters did not 
 shrink from fighting a bear with an axe. To strike and 
 wound a bear, without killing him, is, however, dangerous, 
 as when thus enraged they are very furious. Nor is it safe 
 to wait until a bear is as near as was the one shot by Mr. 
 Peck, spoken of above ; for should the gun miss fire, or only 
 wound the bear, he might prove a troublesome neighbor. 
 
 Mr. William Travis, aged seventy-eight, a neighbor of 
 Mr. Myers in Palensville, near the Clove, when sixteen 
 years old, watched at night for a bear in a cornfield a 
 little north of where Mr. Charles Teal now lives. He 
 had done much injury to all the fields in the neighbor- 
 hood ; and hence all the neighbors watched in their res- 
 peftive fields at the same time, as he did not visit the 
 same field two nights in succession. Near morning Mr. 
 Travis heard a bear in the bushes, then he entered the 
 field, and, rising up erefl, snuffed the air to learn if any 
 danger was near, and, bringing his paws together, drew 
 before him the com of two hills, one on each side of him, 
 and began to eat. Mr. Travis rose twice before he dared 
 to fire ; but the third time shot him in the breast, when he 
 turned back over the fence, groaning like a man. A 
 Dutchman who was near him asleep, rose suddenly, sadly 
 frightened, made a fearful floundering on the ground, 
 declaring that he had shot a black man. Soon guns were 
 heard in all direflions, as the neighbors hastened where 
 
And the Region Around. 127 
 
 the first shot was heard. The bear, a large one, was 
 found in the morning in the mud, in the woods near by, 
 where he had gone to check the flow of blood. Though 
 badly wounded, it required several shots to kill him. 
 
 When Mr. Travis was living for a time in Lexington, 
 west of the mountains, a neighbor and friend of his went 
 to Shandaken, some twenty miles south, to keep school. 
 One day, as some of his pupils went to drive the cows 
 home from pasture, they found a large bear seated on the 
 carcase of one of the cows, which he had killed, taking 
 his supper from her flesh. The children gave the alarm, 
 when the neighbors, who were together at a raising, took 
 their guns, — five rifles, and several shot-guns ; and having 
 by shooting so injured one of his legs that he could not 
 move rapidly, they fired at him thirty-five times before 
 they killed him. Mr. Travis had one of his tusks, which 
 was larger than his thumb. When dressed, the four quar- 
 ters weighed more than four hundred pounds. 
 
 Colonel Merchant Lawrence, who for many years lived 
 where the family of the late Joseph Sax now reside, oppo- 
 site the Dutch Church, at the foot of the mountain, and 
 kept a public house there, tamed and raised several young 
 bears, some of which he kept until three years old. His 
 house was a favorite resort of sportsmen ; and James 
 Powers, Esq., a prominent lawyer in Catskill, now.more 
 than eighty years of age, told me that he used, after 
 the labors of the day in his ofiice, to drive out to Law- 
 rence's, spend the night there, catch a fine string of trout 
 from the meadow brooks near by, and then return to town 
 in time for the business of the day. For several years 
 Colonel Lawrence invited him and other friends to a New 
 Year's supper of bear's meat, which they highly relished. 
 From two sons of Colonel Lawrence, who live near me, 
 and who from early life have been familiar with hunting, I 
 
128 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 have learned many fafls with regard to early hunting 
 adventures, and the habits of the bears tamed and fed by 
 them when they were young. Tame bears do not com- 
 monly lie torpid in their dens the first winter of their 
 lives, especially if they are in a public place, where there 
 is much to excite them. This was true of bears kept 
 by Colonel Lawrence; and Mr. Schutt, at the Laurel 
 House, has a large young bear, which, during the whole 
 of the winter of 1865-6, moved freely about. Some, how- 
 ever, sleep through their first winter. 
 
 As bears grow old they commonly become ugly and 
 cross, the females being more so than the males. One 
 of the bears kept by Colonel Lawrence, when a storm 
 was coming on, would climb to the top of a high post to 
 which he was chained, and howl loud and long, which 
 always proved to be a sure sign of rain or snow. Some- 
 times these bears would be very kind and affe6tionate 
 with those who trained and fed them, but fierce and 
 savage when strangers approached them. As cold wea- 
 ther came on they became cross and sometimes danger- 
 ous. A son of Colonel Lawrence, and another man, 
 once beat a furious bear of his on the head with clubs 
 for half an hour, before they could subdue him ; his 
 head swelling up, and the blood running from his nostrils. 
 Dens were commonly made for them by sinking part of 
 a large hollow tree several feet in length in the ground, 
 with an entrance to it at one end; but sometimes they 
 dug dens for themselves in the side of a hill to the hori- 
 zontal depth of ten or twelve feet. 
 
 One of the bears kept by Colonel Lawrence was quite a 
 pet with his son Merchant, then fifteen years of age, who 
 played freely with him ; but, as is supposed, becoming cross 
 with the approach of winter, and excited to fury by the 
 smell of the blood of a squirrel on the pantaloons of the boy. 
 
And the Region Around. 129 
 
 he seized him by the leg, and tried to drag him into his den 
 to devour him. This the boy prevented, by seating him- 
 self on the end of the log within which the bear was try- 
 ing to, draw him, where the beast fiercely gnawed his leg 
 from the heel to the knee, until a smaller boy who was 
 with him called the Colonel with his gun, and his wife 
 with an axe, from the house for his relief. The father 
 wished to shoot the bear ; but the mother, fearing lest the 
 boy might be injured by the shot, prevented him, and, 
 beating the teeth of the bear with the axe, compelled him, 
 for a moment, to loosen his hold on the boy, when he was 
 hastily withdrawn, the bear rushing fiercely after him as 
 far as his chain would permit him to do so. The bones 
 of the leg were not injured, though portions of the tendon 
 separated from the flesh. 
 
 Fadls have been stated, showing how diflScult it is to 
 kill an old bear by shooting him, and hence the danger 
 there is of waiting until they are quite near before 
 shooting, lest, having wounded them, they should prove 
 dangerous. 
 
 Colonel Lawrence, wishing to have an old bear of his 
 killed, his son took a gun and shot him deliberately in the 
 head. The bear gave little heed to the shot, and a 
 younger son bantered his brother on being such a won- 
 derful shot that he could not kill a bear with the muzzle 
 of his gun close to his head, and told him that the bear 
 cared so little about his shooting that if he should feed him 
 he would eat as well as ever. This was warmly denied 
 by the older son, when his brother brought some bread 
 from the house which the bear quickly ate. A second 
 shot, however, brought him to the ground. I have seen 
 an ox shot several times in the head with a bullet before 
 he fell. In such cases it is probable that the ball enters 
 the head too high or too low to give a deadly wound. 
 9 
 
130 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 One of my neighbors, aged seventy-four, relates among 
 other things that one day while ploughing, he heard his 
 two hunting dogs, and three belonging to Uncle Frederick 
 Sax, barking on the side of the mountain above them. 
 Mr. Sax went on the upper side of a high hemlock-tree, 
 on which was a large bear, and the other man below it. 
 As Mr. Sax aimed too low in shooting, he only wounded 
 the bear in the fore leg, when, rushing quickly down from 
 the tree, one of the dogs seized the bear by the throat, 
 while bruin returned the compliment by firmly fixing his 
 teeth in the skin of the dog's back ; and thus, fiercely 
 struggling, they rolled some ten rods down the steep side 
 of the mountain, closely pursued by the other dogs and 
 the man, until he twice struck the bear a heavy blow on 
 the head with an axe, which killed him. So staunch and 
 true, however, was the dog, that he did not loose his hold 
 on the bear until he was dead ; though the bear had, up 
 to that time, held him in his teeth. This same man once 
 very irreverently remarked to me that he was " no more 
 afraid of a bear than of an old sow ; " and he and other old 
 hunters in this matter did certainly, at times, show their 
 faith by their works. A tight hug by a bear is not, how- 
 ever, a thing to be lightly spoken of; and the way in which 
 they thus embrace one, is not soon forgotten by those who 
 have been favored with such a salutation. 
 
 The fafts which follow were stated to me late in June, 
 l866, by Frederick Layman, of Catskill, a nephew, if I 
 mistake not, of Frederick Sax, the great bear-hunter ; and 
 who lived with him, in his mountain home, from the time 
 he was eight years old until he was twenty. Mr. Layman 
 is now sixty-eight years old, so that what is here related 
 took place fifty years since and more. During the twelve 
 years referred to above, Mr. Layman aided Uncle Frede- 
 rick in killing thirty-five bears. 
 
And the Region Around. 131 
 
 The first adventure they had together was south of 
 Roundtop, in Cairo, as distinft from the high mountain in 
 Hunter, of the same name, near where the Websters now 
 live. A bear had made sad havoc with the corn in that 
 neighborhood, and was tracked and treed by a dog, when 
 Mr. Sax shot it through the leg, after which it ran a quar- 
 ter of a mile. Another shot broke his back ; when, sitting 
 down, as the dogs rushed upon him, he knocked them, one 
 after another, a distance of ten or fifteen feet with his 
 paws. A third shot ended his days. 
 
 While hunting with Uncle Frederick in Winter Clove, 
 they came upon three bears, in a den in the rocks, on a 
 ledge some twelve feet high. They had no fair view of 
 the bears ; yet, after firing into the den twice, the noise 
 and smoke drove the bears out, when a dog seized one of 
 them, while another ran against Uncle Fred's legs, and he, 
 with the two bears and the dog, all rolled down the ledge 
 together, — an adventure much more pleasant for one to 
 tell of, or to hear, than to be engaged in. »On pursuing 
 these bears, one of them ran up a tree, half a mile distant 
 from the den, and was shot ; another was killed the next 
 day, and the third escaped. 
 
 A bear was once caught in a trap, on the side of the 
 mountain above Uncle Fred's, and Layman pursued him 
 half a mile, leading his dog. As he fired at the bear, the 
 dog broke loose from him, and, rushing upon the beast, 
 bruin rose on his hind legs, and seizing the dog with his 
 fore paws, was hugging him more closely than was either 
 comfortable or safe for him, when. Layman coming up, 
 seized the bear from behind by the nape of his neck, and 
 pulled him over backwards. The bear then turning upon 
 Layman, struck him with his claws in the palm of his hand, 
 badly wounding and tearing it open, when the dog seized 
 the bear and held him until Layman shot him. 
 
132 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 On the side of the mountain, back of Nicholas Rowe's, 
 a little northeast of where the toUgate on the road to the 
 Mountain House now is, Uncle Frederick and Layman 
 found a bear in a den. As he came out, Mr. Sax shot, 
 and broke the under jaw of the bear, and Layman put a 
 bullet in his head, but fired so low that it did not kill him. 
 Uncle Fred, in a hand-to-hand fight with the bear, which 
 was pressing hard upon him, while stepping backwards, 
 hit against a fallen bush or pole, and fell upon his back, 
 when the bear rushed upon him, and but for his broken 
 jaw might have made quick work with him. The dogs, 
 however, fiercely seized the bear, thus releasing Mr. Sax. 
 The late Joseph Sax, who was working near by, having 
 come up, Uncle Fred took his axe and with it killed the bear. 
 
 Frederick Layman used to hunt with Evert Lawrence, 
 a son of Cojonel Lawrence, spoken of above. South of 
 the Cauterskill Clove they once treed a bear, when, both 
 of them having fired at him, he fell from the tree, and, 
 having run half a mile, he was stopped by the dogs. 
 Layman loaded his gun, and was trying to get a chance 
 to shoot the bear without putting the dogs in danger of 
 being shot, when the bear suddenly sprang upon him, 
 from an elevation of a few feet above him, threw him 
 down under him, and would soon have ended both his 
 hunting and his life had not one of the dogs seized the 
 bear by the nose and two others in the rear, when Layman 
 was quickly released, and, seizing his gun, shot him 
 through the heart. 
 
 Uncle Frederick once shot a female bear just at night 
 on the mountain back of his house, and, seizing her by 
 the leg, dragged her home. The next morning her three 
 cubs, several months old, having followed her trail down 
 to near the house, were there treed by the dogs. The 
 tree was cut down, when one of the cubs was killed by 
 
And the Region Around. 133 
 
 the dogs who had broken from their muzzles, while the 
 other two were secured, one of them having been carried 
 to the house in the checked woollen apron of Mrs. Sax, 
 and, though it scratched her severely, she held it fast. 
 
 These two cubs were tamed and kept two or three 
 years, one of them by Colonel Lawrence, at the hotel at 
 the foot of the mountain, and the other by Mr. Peter P. 
 Sax, about a mile north of the hotel and church. From 
 the sons of Colonel Lawrence, and from Mr. Peter F. 
 Sax, a nephew of Peter P., who lived with him when 
 young, I had the fafts which follow. Mr. Peter F. Sax 
 was about twenty years old when the fafts here spoken 
 of took place, and is now sixty-four. He and one of the 
 Lawrences referred to above were elders in the church 
 of which I was pastor. 
 
 During the winter, from early in December until about 
 the first of April, these bears were torpid in their dens, 
 eating nothing, and when disturbed barely opening their 
 eyes, without stirring unless they were forced to do so. 
 They lay so still that they did not disturb the snow which 
 fell on their chains, as the chains lay on the ground out- 
 side of their dens. The bear which Mr. Sax had, dug a 
 den in the side of a hill near the house of a horizontal 
 depth of about twelve feet, where he wintered. . Mrs. Sax 
 once in a measure forced him from his winter quarters, 
 soon after he had retired there, to gratify the curiosity of 
 some visitors, when so cross was he that he gave her 
 a blow on her hand with his paw, the marks of which 
 she bore with her to her grave, though he was very fond 
 of her, and used to take food from her hands and her 
 large pockets as he stood ere£t beside her. Peter F. 
 Sax told me that he once tied a bone, with meat on it, on 
 the end of a long pole, in winter, and thrust it under the 
 nose of the bear, in his den, when he stupidly opened his 
 
134 "^f^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 eyes, but did not taste or touch it, though at other times 
 he had a most greedy appetite for meat. 
 
 And now I come to a fadt connefted with the natural 
 history of bears, of which I have never seen anything in 
 boolcs, but for the truth of which all the old hunters of 
 the Catskill Mountains and the country around, and 
 those conne6led with them, will solemnly vouch, as 
 proved by their own personal observation, or the testi- 
 mony of those whose veracity cannot be impeached, and 
 the truth of whose statements no one who knew them 
 well would ever question. And yet there may be those 
 who would think it strange that an honest old Dutch 
 dominie, of full size and mature age, should venture to 
 tell as true what follows. My reply to such would be, 
 that there always have been those in the world who doubt 
 or deny the truth of what they themselves have never 
 seen or known. A fool of this stripe, who said that he 
 would not believe in what he had never seen, was very 
 properly asked if he had ever seen his own back 1 
 
 What I here refer to is that the second day of February 
 of each year is known as " Bear's Day ; " and that on that 
 day bears wake from winter sleep, come forth from their 
 dens, take a knowing observation of the weather for a few 
 minutes, and then retire to their nests and finish their 
 repose of some weeks or months, — it may be longer. It 
 is further claimed that if the sky is clear, the sun shining 
 so that they can see their shadows, and the weather cold, 
 when they thus come forth, they sleep quietly on until 
 about the first of April, thinking that cold weather will 
 continue thus long. On the other hand, if the weather is 
 mild and cloudy, they look for an early spring, and often 
 leave their dens ; or if the water from the melting snow 
 above them penetrates the earth, so as to wet them in their 
 dens, they seek some new resting-place and home. 
 
And the Region Around. 135 
 
 That bears do thus come forth from their dens the second 
 day of February, is known by the tracks made by them 
 that day at the mouth of their winter quarters, as also by 
 observing the habits of tame bears, which, as in the case 
 of the two named above, come forth on Bear Day, and, 
 after wisely observing the weather some five minutes, retire 
 again to rest. As several tame bears have been kept by 
 those whom I know well, men of Christian principle, and 
 entirely reliable, and after a careful observation in some 
 cases for two or three successive winters of the same ani- 
 mals, as their testimony is un'^'-m as to the fa6l that these 
 bears did, each winter, thus come forth from their dens the 
 second day of February, as described above, I cannot 
 therefore question or doubt the truth of the statement 
 here advanced. Thus much for Bear Day. 
 
 Since writing the above I met with the following, under 
 date of February, 1867 : 
 
 " The Weather at Cincinnati. — The ' Cincinnati 
 Commercial' says that 'the old tradition that when, on the 
 2d of February, the ground-hog leaves his hole, and, seeing 
 his shadow, returns to winter quarters, we may expefl six 
 weeks of severe winter weather, was determined, so far as 
 this se6lion is concerned, in favor of an early spring. The 
 sky was overcast on Saturday ; and the ground-hog, if he 
 appeared at all, found that he cast no more shadow than 
 the Dutchman who sold his to the Evil One.'" 
 
 The marmots, or woodchucks, are sometimes called 
 ground-hogs, and so also are bears. Which are here 
 meant, I do not know. The two tame bears spoken of 
 above were killed at the same time, and their meat taken 
 to market. The skin of one of them was sold for ten dol- 
 lars in Albany, and stuifed, and is still in a museum there. 
 Bears are seen here and there on the mountains every 
 year, a few of which are kiUed ; while, at times, they make 
 
136 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 free with sheep, calves, and swine. During the winter of 
 1865-6, a bear weighing three hundred and thirty-eight 
 pounds when dressed was killed on Stony Clove ; and 
 one was shot by a grandson of Frederick Sax in 0£lo- 
 ber, 1 866, the meat of which was eaten with a relish by those 
 who had been familiar with such meat in their early days. 
 The largest black bears in this region weigh, when dressed, 
 from four hundred to five hundred pounds. Five or six 
 bears were trapped or shot by hunters in and near Kiska- 
 tom in the fall and winter of 1866-7. 
 
 Traps for catching bears are made by hewing oif the 
 upper surface of logs to about one third of their thickness, 
 thus making a floor seven feet long and three feet wide, 
 with sides and an end of logs, some three feet high. There 
 are two heavy logs lengthwise on the top, a low entrance, 
 with two logs over it at one end. Within is what is called a 
 figure four, or other spring, baited, by the falling of which the 
 logs at the entrance come down, and the bear is thus caged. 
 
 In the autumn of 1857, bears trampled down and ate 
 oats in a field near the lakes, just back of the Catskill 
 Mountain House. They were tracked by Mr. Beach, pro- 
 prietor of the house, and Old Thorp the Bear Hunter, as 
 he is called, who lives there, along the ridge of the North 
 Mountain, by the well-known marks which they make by 
 rising on their hind feet and removing with their teeth a 
 piece of bark from the sides of trees, when they wish to 
 pass the same way again. It is said that along some of 
 their paths, on the upper ridges of the Catskill Moun- 
 tains, there are trees which have thus been entirely peeled 
 some feet from the ground, and killed. A trap like the 
 one spoken of above was built on the North Mountain, 
 where its ruins now are, in which the old bears that 
 troubled the oats were caught, while their young ones 
 taken were near by. 
 
And the Region Around. 137 
 
 It is a fafl worth noticing that there are those who 
 have a peculiar fondness for animals, and towards whom 
 animals, both tame and wild, are strongly attrafted. In 
 one of the towns among the upper heights of the Catskill 
 
 Mountains there is a Mrs. B , who is peculiarly fond of 
 
 animals, as they are also of her. She says that she is not 
 afraid of any animal, and wild bears have come to her in 
 the woods, and licked her hands. Domestic animals she 
 sells ; but will never have sheep, horned cattle, or swine 
 killed on the farm, nor sold to butchers or drovers for 
 slaughtering. 
 
 Her greatest favorites, however, are cats, of which she 
 keeps twenty or thirty, each one having its own name and 
 place for feeding. Wishing to spend a winter with friends 
 in New England, some years since, she hired a man with 
 a team to take her cats there, safely confined in a large 
 box-cage, and with them a cow to furnish them with milk. 
 While passing through the Cauterskill Clove, as the cats 
 were noisy and troublesome, the man made an opening in 
 their cage and let them all loose in the woods, much to the 
 annoyance of their mistress when she learned of her loss. 
 
 Bears are very fond of wild berries, which grow in great 
 abundance on the mountains, and are at times met with 
 by those who are picking them. Some young ladies thus 
 employed in the summer of 1865, a little north of and 
 above the toUgate, on the way to the Mountain House, 
 on looking up saw a bear near them, very politely stand- 
 ing upright, as much as to say, " I would take off my hat 
 if I had one, and make you a low bow." They did not, 
 however, wish for better acquaintance, and hurried down 
 the mountain in double-quick time. One of them, a grand- 
 daughter of Frederick Sax, said that she would have 
 taken a stick to him and driven him off, had not her com- 
 panions left her alone in such bad company. 
 
138 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 That the bears are not all dead yet, at least in the State 
 of Maine, is evident from the following, published in the 
 winter of 1866-7 under the heading of " Bears Killed : " 
 
 " Augusta, Me., January 10. — Returns received at the 
 office of the Secretary of State show that during last 
 year there were two hundred and sixty-five bears killed in 
 this State. In Penobscot County alone there were one 
 hundred and nine killed, and in the town of Lincoln forty- 
 five. 
 
 "The returns show that there were only four wolves 
 killed in the entire State during the year." 
 
And the Region Around. 139 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The American Panther and Tiger. — Panthers in the Mountains. —One killed 
 in Cairo. — ^A Panthe rand Bear. — A Warm Embrace. — Peter Osterhout, Esq. 
 — ^A Bear, Panther, and Deer. — An Indian's £uck. — ^A Panther treed. — One 
 seen in 1865. — Wildcats. — Wolves. — Elk or Moose. — Snakes in the Moun- 
 tain.— Thorpe's Statement. — Swine eat them. — Black Snakes. — Hung as 
 Criminals, — Their Length. — Rattlesnakes. — A Texas Story. — Snakes in 
 Cairo. — A large Family. — Bears. — ^A Wolf-chase. — Wild Animals in Scho- 
 harie County. — The Indian " Bear Catcher." — Warner and a Bear. — Schaef 
 fer and Schell. — Mana Teabout and a Panther. — Panther Meat. — Beavers. — 
 Wildcats. — Dr. Moulter. — Deer. — Six of them Shot with Arrows. 
 
 THE cougar or American panther, or painter, 
 as this animal is often called, painter being a 
 corruption of the word "panther," belongs to 
 the feline or cat species, and is found from Patago- 
 nia, in South America, to the northern bounds of the 
 State of New York. Its color on the back is reddish 
 brown, with a lighter hue about the neck and the lower 
 part of the body. Their whole length, including the tail, 
 is commonly six feet or a little more, and they are 
 the same with the Puma or South American lion. The 
 jaguar, or American tiger, is somewhat larger and stronger 
 than the panther, and is found from Paraguay, in South 
 America, to the Red River in Texas. It has some seven 
 stripes on each side, made up of a row of open rings, and 
 with the panther is by furriers and by some naturalists 
 held to be of the same species with the leopard, while 
 others make them a distindt class. 
 
 Panthers were met with in the Catskill Mountains and 
 the country around from the time of its first settlement, 
 
140 The Catskill Mountains j 
 
 though there were never many of them. An aged neigh- 
 bor of mine told me, that, when young, he saw two pan- 
 thers not fully grown cross the road and meadow east 
 of the house of Colonel Lawrence, and leap through the 
 grass until they reached a knoll south of the meadow, 
 where they jumped on the trunk of a fallen pine, and 
 gave a loud cry, which was answered by their mother, 
 who was some distance to the west, on the cliff above 
 them. He afterwards saw the mother at the first road 
 turning to the left, above the house of Colonel Lawrence", 
 on the road up the mountain. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jessie Taylor, aged eighty-seven, worthy 
 members of the Reformed Dutch Church in Kiskatom, 
 relate that sixty-five years ago, in 1802, soon after they 
 were married, on visiting her father, James Van Atten, or 
 " Van Atta," as some -wrote it, about a mile east of where 
 the village of Cairo now is, near the ford of the Catskill 
 Creek, they found that the night before a panther had 
 driven in her father's young cattle from the woods, and, 
 having climbed a white-oak tree near the house, was so 
 shot ; that one of his fore legs was broken, when, com- 
 ing to the ground, he found a hiding-place among the 
 rocks near by, where he was watched all night, and was 
 killed in the morning by a bullet in his head, having been 
 thus dosed with lead several times in different parts of his 
 body before he finally fell. He measured nine feet and 
 seven inches from his nose to the end of his tail, a huge 
 monster of his kind. His body was thick and large, and 
 his legs of the size of a man's arm. An aged man, living 
 in the neighborhood at the time when this panther was 
 killed, told me that an Englishman who was present was 
 seriously injured by the panther. 
 
 Many years since, Mr. Wolven, a carpenter, living in 
 Kiskatom, while fishing in one of the lakes near the 
 
And the Region Around. 141 
 
 Mountain House, saw a bear cross a log between the two 
 lakes, and quickly digging a hole in the soft ground near 
 the water, placed himself on his back in it, when, soon 
 after, a panther that was following him came, and rushing 
 upon the bear, received from him a warm and sharp em- 
 brace, in his powerful legs and paws, which caused him 
 to cry out loudly for quarter, and to retreat post haste 
 from his ugly neighbor. Had the bear been standing, 
 the panther, by leaping on his back, clinging there, and 
 putting out his eyes with his claws, or by digging into his 
 vitals, or by his superior aftivity and strength, might soon 
 have killed him. 
 
 Fafls somewhat similar to those just stated were fur- 
 nished me, with many others in this work, by my worthy 
 and venerable friend, Peter Osterhout, Esq., of Schoharie, 
 a native of Catskill, a retired merchant, a gentleman and 
 Christian of the old school, now nearly eighty years of 
 age. In a long and valuable letter to me, dated August 
 7, 1866, he thus writes : " I must give you an adven- 
 ture of a celefcrated Indian, a great hunter, before the 
 Revolutionary War, living in the town of Catskill. I 
 have heard the story related by several aged persons who 
 knew him and had no doubt of his veracity. His name 
 was Wancham ; his statement was as follows : While 
 hunting in the Catskill Mountains, he came upon the 
 carcass of a deer, quite recently killed, as he supposed, 
 by a panther or a bear ; so he hid himself behind a wind- 
 fall near by, and had not been there long when a large 
 bear came up and began to make a meal out of the deer. 
 A few minutes after a large panther came also, and began 
 to tear the carcass of the deer. This did not suit bruin, 
 who claimed the deer as his spoil, and struck the panthei, 
 who jumped on the other side of the deer, when the bear 
 followed him up and tried to hug him, but the panther 
 
142 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 soon" (having, doubtless, leaped on the bear's back), 
 " with his hind claws, ripped him open and killed him. 
 The Indian, thinking that the game was now in his favor, 
 fired and killed the panther ; and thus he had a deer, a 
 panther, and a bear, all in a pile, by a single shot of his 
 gun." 
 
 Frederick Layman relates that when, as a boy, he was 
 living with his uncle Sax, they were called out in the 
 night by the barking of the dogs, at a tree near the 
 house ; supposing that there was a raccoon on the tree, 
 he climbed to near its top, where he could see and hear a 
 large animal direftly above him. He told his uncle that 
 the animal was much larger than a coon ; but being ac- 
 cused of being afraid, and told to break off a limb and 
 strike the animal, while doing so a large panther leaped 
 to the ground, to a distance of more than thirty feet from 
 the tree, and ran up the side of the mountain, with the 
 dogs after him. 
 
 In the spring of 1865, Mr. Daniel Layman, a son-in- 
 law of Frederick Sax, while looking for some young cattle 
 in the woods on the side of the mountain north of the 
 tollgate on the mountain road, saw a panther near them, 
 who would, doubtless, soon have provided himself with a 
 supply of fresh meat, had he not been thus disturbed. 
 With the loud cry peculiar to these animals, he beat a 
 hasty retreat up the mountain. 
 
 The lynx, or common wildcat, is still met with in the 
 mountains and near them ; and animals of this class are 
 often killed there. 
 
 Forty or fifty years since, wolves were as thick in the 
 woods on and near the mountains as gray rabbits now 
 are ; their howling could be heard in all direftions at 
 night. 
 
 Abraham Van Vechten, Esq., whose ancestors settled 
 
And the Region Around. 143 
 
 in Catskill in 1681, says that a moose, the ellc of Europe, 
 and musu of the Indians, from which comes our word 
 "moose,'' was once Icilled on his father's farm, one of 
 the feet of which he saw. The male has immense horns, 
 and is sometimes seventeen hands high, and weighs 
 twelve hundred pounds. 
 
 Copperheads, with black snakes and rattlesnakes, used 
 to abound in the mountains ; but with the exception 
 of black snakes, which are not poisonous, are now rarely 
 met with. Thorpe, "the bear-hunter," — though he has 
 killed but few bears, — the old man at the Mountain House, 
 affirms that when he first came to the mountains as a 
 young man many years since, he saw hundreds and hun- 
 dreds of rattlesnakes, but that during his recent residence 
 of several years there he had not seen more than twenty, 
 most of which were dead, having been killed by visitors 
 there. Those who pick berries among the upper heights 
 of the mountains have told me of sometimes seeing a 
 rattlesnake, though very rarely. Swine, running in the 
 woods, where they feed on acorns and other nuts, greed- 
 ily devour snakes, and are not injured by those which are 
 poisonous ; and hence they soon destroy most of these 
 reptiles where they run at large. 
 
 My pupils once had eleven black snakes hung as crim- 
 inals by the neck to a long, projefting stake, in a rail 
 fence by the roadside near the parsonage, which were 
 killed in the cliff below the house, some of them having 
 been shot as they lay coiled up to enjoy the pleasant heat 
 of the sun. The largest of them were from four to five 
 feet long. A black snake eight feet long is said to have 
 been killed near the mountains some years since, and a 
 gentleman in Orange County told me of one that was 
 killed near where he lived that was twelve feet long. 
 Rattlesnakes which I have seen have not been more than 
 
144 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 from three to five feet in length. I have, however, re- 
 cently met with the following in a newspaper : " Large 
 Snake. — A rattlesnake was recently killed near Belleville, 
 Texas, which was fourteen feet long, six inches thick, and 
 had forty-five rattles. Three men, armed with fence rails, 
 had a desperate combat with it." 
 
 About five miles north of the Kiskatom parsonage, in 
 Cairo, is a large rock on a sidehill, which I have often 
 seen, over which water flows after a rain, and from under 
 which there came, during a single warm season, more than 
 one hundred black snakes, which were killed by a family 
 living near by, from whom I had the fafts stated above. 
 Fourteen snakes were killed one day, twenty another, 
 twenty-two another, and smaller numbers other days. 
 They measured from two and a half to six and a half feet 
 in length. The old gentleman at the head of this family, 
 at the age of eighty-two, in the summer of 1865, one day 
 loaded and mowed away six tons of hay on a stack for 
 one of his neighbors, between nine a.m. and two p.m. 
 He once kicked a wild bear on the nose, that was trying 
 to bite a dog ; had killed three bears on the ground, and 
 helped others kill two on trees. Some of these bears 
 weighed from three hundred and fifty to nearly four hun- 
 dred pounds. A wolf once followed him closely at night 
 for a mile or more through the woods, gnashing his teeth 
 at him ; when, thinking that he saw a club of peeled wood 
 near him, he stooped to pick it up, but found it to be water 
 in a rut, which reflefted the light of the moon, so that he 
 was defenseless still. Then the wolf howled, and was 
 answered by others not far off, which he took as a loud 
 hint for him to reach home as soon as possible, inasmuch 
 as while single wolves rarely attack a man unless they are 
 quite hungry, yet several of them together are often quite 
 dangerous to meet with. 
 
And the Region Around. 145 
 
 From Simms' " History of Schoharie " we learn that 
 bears, deer, panthers, and other wild animals abounded 
 there when the early German settlers came in 1711, and 
 long after that time. One of these settlers having shot 
 and wounded a bear, it turned upon, killed, and tore him 
 to pieces. An Indian named Bellows came from hunting, 
 holding his bowels in their place with his hands, having 
 had his body torn open by a bear, which he killed after it 
 had thus injured him. An Indian called " the Bear 
 Catcher," an Indian living near Foxes' Creek, once treed a 
 bear, and, having fired upon it, brought it to the ground.; 
 when, in a hand-to-hand fight, he seized the bear's lower 
 jaw so as to proteft himself, and then drew it so closely 
 to him as for a time to confine his fore paws, until having 
 dra-wn one of them out he gave the Indian a fearful wound 
 across the breast ; when, having called his son, he came, 
 and placing his gun in the bear's mouth, shot and killed 
 him. 
 
 One Warner, living at Punchkill, went near evening for 
 his cows, when he met a bear with cubs, which pursued 
 him. Taking refuge behind a large tree, he kept out of 
 reach of the bear, until, having seized a heavy hemlock 
 knot or limb, he killed the bear with it. Near Foxes' 
 Creek, John Shaeffer and George Schell were hunting, and 
 their dog having treed a bear, ShaeflFer fired and brought 
 him to the ground, when, having seized the dog, he hugged 
 him so closely as to hurt him badly ; when Shaeffer hav- 
 ing grasped the bear's paw with a view to relieve the dog, 
 the bear quickly threw his paw around Shaeffer's arm also, 
 and held him fast, until, having shouted to his companion, 
 he came, and very carefully reaching out a tomahawk to 
 him, he quickly buried its blade in the bear's head, and 
 thus relieved both himself and his dog. 
 
 We learn also from Simms that one Maria Teabout, who 
 10 
 
146 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 was part Indian, was with several others on Fireberg Hill, 
 when hearing a cry like that of a child, she answered it 
 with a similar cry. Being told not to do so, as the cry 
 was that of a painter, or panther, she still continued to an- 
 swer it, until, the others having gone away, the panther 
 came ; when, before it saw her, she hid herself in a hollow 
 log, where it did not find her. Soon a party well armed 
 and on horseback came to look for traces of her or her 
 remains, presuming she had been torn to pieces ; when, in 
 answer to their call, she crept forth from the log and joined 
 them. They then hung a blanket on a bush, so as to 
 resemble a man ; and, concealing themselves, an Indian 
 who was with them so imitated the cry of the panther 
 that he soon returned, and, springing at the blanket, tore 
 it to pieces. He was then shot and skinned, and the In- 
 dians cut meat from the carcass and carried it home with 
 them to cook and eat. The last panther shot in that region 
 was killed near the house of Mr. John Enders, on Foxes' 
 Creek. 
 
 Beaver were numerous when the Germans first came to 
 Schoharie ; and at a place called Beaver Dam, on Foxes' 
 Creek, in what is now Berne, in Albany County, they had 
 several strong dams. 
 
 Of wildcats, or the lynx, which are still often met with 
 in the region of the Catskill Mountains, it is said that 
 one Dr. Moulter, having found a strange animal among 
 his geese in the night, seized it by the hind legs and the 
 back of its neck, and was able to hold it fast until his sons 
 came and killed it. It proved to be a wildcat. If the ani- 
 mal was full grown, the do<5lor must have been a powerful 
 man to have been able thus to hold it 
 
 Deer were for a long time numerous ; and it is said that 
 in one of their runways or paths which they frequented, 
 an Indian who was lying in wait for deer shot six of them 
 
And the Region Around. 147 
 
 with arrows in quick succession, as no noise was made by 
 these winged messengers of death to warn those which 
 were coming of the fate of such as had gone before. In 
 order thus to kill deer, however, one must be quite near 
 them ; and a strong bow, with a sure and steady aim, was 
 required. 
 
148 The Catskill Mowitains, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A Romantic Story. — A Version of it by Colonel Stone. — Howes and Barber. 
 An Ancient House and Family. — A Female Servant. — Her Fate. — Her 
 Master. — His Punishment. — His Age and Death. — Strange Sights and 
 Sounds.— The Sutherlands.— The Hero of the Tale. — His Last Years.— Tha 
 Fadts in the Case, from Rev. Mr. Searle. — The Servant Girl.— Danger ol 
 her Master. — Retribution. — General S. — His Statement. — Ancient Swords. 
 — Sally Hamilton. — Her Character and Violent Death. — Mystery of the 
 Case. — Rev. Mr. Hotchkin. — His Life and Labors. — His Son. — History by 
 Him.— Rev. Dr. Williston. — His Life and Writings. — Rev. Dr. Porter. — 
 Events in his Life. — Samuel L. Penfield. — His Character. — His Death and 
 that of Dr. Porter. — Hon. Daniel Sayre. — Burning of his House and Chil- 
 dren. — ^Their Funeral Sermon. — ^The Pierce Family. — ^John Pierce. — Ruth 
 Fierce. — General Washington. — Dr. Bard. — Washington's Inauguration. — 
 His Sickness. — His Feelings in View of Death. — Mrs. Croswell. — Mrs. 
 Seeley. — Washington's Sickness, by Irving. 
 
 THERE is a story of peculiarly tragic and romantic 
 interest connefted with the early history of 
 Greene County, which I will here, give. The 
 first version of it presented will for the most part be 
 that written by Colonel William L. Stone, formerly editor 
 of the "New York Commercial Advertiser," and author 
 of " The Life of Brant " and other works. His version of 
 the story is in Barber and Howe's " Historical CoUeftions 
 of the State of New York," pages 187, 188, and may be 
 briefly stated thus : 
 
 Before reaching Cairo, nearly ten miles north west of 
 Catskill, is an ancient stone house, with 1705 on its front, 
 in large iron figures. This house is in the midst of a 
 farm of one thousand acres, which, during part of the 
 seventeenth and nearly all of the eighteenth century, be- 
 
And the Region Around. 149 
 
 longed to a single owner, who was one of a family who 
 were the original proprietors of a large domain in that 
 neighborhood. When young, he was of an arbitrary, 
 overbearing disposition, and of uncontrolled and violent 
 passions. A girl, or rather young woman, who was bound 
 to service in tlie family and who it is said had a lover 
 who was interested in the case, and may have had some 
 agency in the matter, ran away. In those days, when 
 slavery existed, and white emigrants, as was true in this 
 case, were bound to service for a series of years, to repay 
 the amount of their passage-money to this country, the 
 control of masters over those thus employed was much 
 more despotic and arbitrary than that which is now 
 claimed or exercised by employers. 
 
 The master, having overtaken the fugitive, tied her to 
 the tail of his horse, which, becoming frightened, ran, 
 and dashed her to pieces among the rocks and stones. 
 He was tried for murder, and found guilty ; but, being 
 rich and of a powerful family, through the agency of 
 wealth and family influence, the Court was induced to 
 delay the sentence of execution by hanging until he 
 should be ninety-nine years old. He was also, it is said, 
 to present himself once each year before the judges of 
 the court, when it was in session, and always to wear a 
 cord around his neck as a constant memento alike of his 
 crime and its punishment Aged people, who knew him 
 when he was old, said that they had seen a small silken 
 cord around his neck. For seventy-five years after his 
 sentence he lived a retired, quiet, inoffensive life : but his 
 crime and his sentence were not forgotten ; and, when he 
 was ninety years old and upwards, those around him said 
 that he could not and would not die until his appointed 
 time had come, and he had satisfied the offended justice 
 and majesty of law, both human and divine ; and that 
 
156 The Catskill Mountains,- 
 
 thus he would be like those of whom an inspired Apostle 
 says, " Whose judgment " (or sentence) " now of a long 
 time lingereth not, and their damnation " (condemnation) 
 " slumbereth not." Thus he lived on and on ; but great 
 changes had occurred : our Revolutionary War had given 
 us a new government, and who would molest the quiet, 
 inoflfensive old man, dead as he was to the world around 
 him, and the world to him ? And so he died, peacefully 
 in his bed, when more than one hundred years old ; hav- 
 ing undergone an almost lifelong punishment of exile 
 from society around hira, and of a living death in the 
 midst of his fellow-men. 
 
 Long after this crime, even down to our own times, 
 strange tales were told and fearful sights were seen where 
 the murder was committed, as the country youth, returning 
 from late visits to their lady loves or others in that region, 
 passed at midnight by the place. Sad sighs and lamenta- 
 tions were borne along by the night winds. A white cow, 
 which was a favorite with the murdered maid, would stand 
 and sadly moan and low among the rocks ; a wild-looking, 
 shaggy white dog, that had known and was attached to 
 her, would stand howling and pointing'towards the house 
 . where the lonely criminal lived, and would then disappear 
 as one approached hira ; a white horse of gigantic size, 
 with fiery eyeballs and distended nostrils, was often seen 
 at night rushing past the fatal spot, dragging a female with 
 tattered clothes behind him, shrieking aloud for help. 
 Then a horse dragging a frightful skeleton after him, half 
 covered with a winding-sheet, with dismal cries and bowl- 
 ings, would be seen borne onwards as on the wings of the 
 wind. Again, a female figure on a huge fragment of rock, 
 with a lighted candle on each finger, would sit and wildly 
 sing, or utter piercing cries or an hysterical laugh. Such, 
 in substance, is the story as given by Colonel Stone, con- 
 
And the Region Around. 151 
 
 densed somewhat, and yet inwrought with fafts from other 
 sources, and in part in language which is not his. 
 
 "The Sutherlands," by Miss Cowles, is a romance 
 founded on this story, she having spent some time in the 
 neighborhood where these events are said to have occurred ; 
 and thus she made herself familiar with the traditions re- 
 lated above, and the place where they occurred. In filling 
 out her tale she varies from the commonly received state- 
 ments of fafts in the case, by making the murdered girl a 
 colored slave, half Indian and half mulatto, instead of 
 ■white ; and in other matters. Some of her descriptions 
 have, however, so much of life and truth in them, sup- 
 posing what she states to be true, that I will briefly quote 
 them. 
 
 Speaking of her hero as living alone in his ancient and 
 massive old dwelling, where his servants, even, would not 
 venture at night, but lived in a lodge near by, she says of 
 him, after his sentence : " All ugliness and vindiftiveness 
 of temper were gone. He noticed no member of his house- 
 hold, and could be made to feel no interest in the manage- 
 ment of his estate. His faculties were all unimpaired 
 his memory vigorous, and his judgment clear. With acute 
 possession of intelligence and reason, and with strangely 
 sustained endurance, he saw his wrecked and blasted for- 
 tunes in the fullest, strongest light. Remorse, not violent, 
 passionate, self-destrudtive, and exhausting, but remorse 
 that grew upon him, slow, steady, strong, fastening itself 
 upon his soul, fitting itself into it, binding itself about it ; 
 this remorse was his companion, night and day. His pain 
 of mind was not intense and racking enough to wear out 
 his body, and his body as yet refused to prey upon his 
 mind. The blankness and desolation of the present, the 
 blackness and shamefulness of the past, the awfulness of 
 the future, these he saw with eyes made clear and strong, 
 
1 52 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 for the perfeflion of his punishment ; and yet no groan, 
 no transport of remorse escaped him.'' 
 
 Spealcing of him in his old age, as troubled mainly by the 
 officious curiosity of the little ones who clambered up in his 
 lap, searching for and asking about the silken cord he 
 wore about his neck, she says, " It seemed a matter ot 
 indifference to him that his neighbors shunned and feared 
 him ; that for weeks together no stranger would come near 
 his dwelling ; that, when he walked abroad, the very children 
 shrank away in awe. No emotion seemed to be awakened 
 in his mind when stories of the people's superstitions 
 regarding him and his grim abode came to his ears. The 
 country people would walk miles around to avoid passing 
 within earshot of it by night Ghosts they believed were 
 its habitual tenants ; poor murdered Natlee, chained to 
 her ghastly horse, dashed nightly past the old man's win- 
 dow, and the clatter of his hoofs upon the rocks reached 
 there the whole night long. The old man heard these 
 stories, and knew of this belief; but they never gave him 
 one pang, more or less. 
 
 " Children grew into youths and maidens. Some married 
 and went to distant homes, while others lay down to rest 
 in narrower but stiller homes in the churchyard on the 
 hill, and yet the old man's breath was even and his brow 
 unclouded. Changes such as few men live to see passed 
 upon those around him, and left him untouched. He saw 
 the young let go their hold on life and he down dumb in 
 death, the old sink quietly into waiting graves, and the 
 middle-aged give grudgingly up their cherished idols and 
 obey God's summons. He saw revolutions convulse the 
 State, a repubUc born, a nation started into life, wars rage 
 and cease, great names made and great men rise and reign 
 and die ; and still his worthless, blank, dead life clung to 
 him, still his dreary burden must be borne. 
 
A7id the Region Around. 153 
 
 " The slow years grew heavier and slower as they neared 
 that once distant goal. Each day had its own dire, dis- 
 tinft, unceasing weight of dread. He felt life enough in 
 his pulses to carry him beyond that point, vitality enough 
 to hold him in the flesh until justice should have her due. 
 But he need not have feared : men had forgotten if God 
 had not. A new government held the reigns, a new gen- 
 eration had arisen ; the old man and his crime were 
 things long buried in the past. In the hurry and tumult 
 of the present, old reckonings were lost sight of, old 
 promises were obliterated. The appointed time of 
 retribution came and passed, and Ralph Sutherland died 
 quietly in his bed, undisturbed of men, and only judged 
 of by God, in the hundredth year of his strange and sin- 
 ful life. As Moore has well said, 
 
 * To walk through sunlight places. 
 With heart all cold the while ; 
 To look in smiling faces, 
 AVhen we no more can smile ; 
 To feel, while earth and heaven 
 Around thee shine with bliss. 
 To thee no light is given, — 
 Oh I what a doom is this.* " 
 
 Some of the principal fafts in the case described above, 
 as recently obtained at my request from aged people living 
 in the neighborhood, by my friend. Rev. Mr. Searle, pastor 
 of the Reformed Dutch Church in Leeds, a village in the 
 town of Catskill, are as follows : 
 
 Mr. William S , belonging to one of the earliest, 
 
 richest, and most respeftable families in the county, a man 
 honorable alike in his descent and in his descendants, who 
 still live in the county, was guilty of the crime in question. 
 He did not live in the old house spoken of by Colonel 
 Stone, built in 1705, and now occupied by Mr. James Van 
 Deusen, though he was born there ; but in that in which 
 
154 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 General William S formerly lived, and where the 
 
 family of the late Cornelius Rouse now reside. It is the 
 old stone house near the tollgate, on the road to Cairo, a 
 little more than a mile from the Dutch Church in Leeds. 
 The girl who was killed was white and of Scotch descent. 
 
 She had been sold, as it was called, to Mr. S ; that is, 
 
 she had been bound by her parents to labor for him until 
 she was twenty-one years old, in order to raise money with 
 which to pay for the then recent passage of the family from 
 Scotland, — it being common in early times for persons to 
 sell themselves, or rather their labor for a term of years, 
 or to be thus sold by others, in order to pay for their pas- 
 sage as emigrants from Europe to America. The young 
 woman, not being treated as she liked, ran away, and was 
 
 pursued and overtaken by Mr. S . To punish her he 
 
 tied her hands together with a halter, which he fastened 
 to his horse's tail. While thus dragging her along she 
 stumbled and fell, hitting the hind legs of the horse, and 
 so frightening him that he became unmanageable, and ran at 
 a furious rate with her fastened to him, until after she was 
 
 dead. Mr. S was also thrown from the horse, and 
 
 with his foot fast in the stirrup would himself have been 
 killed but for the breaking of his shoe-buckle, by which 
 his foot was released. What a fearful spedtacle of speedy 
 retributive justice would it have been had his dead and 
 mangled body, with hers, been drawn along the rough 
 road, torn and bleeding, by that fiercely dashing steed ! 
 To such an event a parallel could scarce have been found 
 in the poetry or fiftion of any age. The place where she 
 was killed was on the old Coxsackie road, half a mile north- 
 west of the church, between the house of Mr. William 
 Newkirk and the foundry of Mr. Milton Fowks. Her 
 body, it is said, was buried on Mr. Newkirk's farm. As 
 appUed to cases like that here given, how true it is, that, 
 
And tlie Region Around. 155 
 
 *' In a moment, we may plunge our yeazs 
 In fatal penitence, and in the bliglit 
 Of our own souls turn all our blood to tears, 
 An5 color things to come with hues of night 
 The race of life becomes a Hopeless flight 
 To those who walk in darkness ; 
 And yet existence may be borne, and the deep root 
 Of life and suiTerance make its firm abode 
 In bare and desolate bosoms." 
 
 Since writing the above I have called upon General 
 S , a grandson of the hero of this tale, a highly respect- 
 able citizen of Catskill, and a magistrate there. And al- 
 though it is a pity, a sad pity indeed, to spoil or mar so 
 good a story, so often repeated, and so religiously believed 
 in all the country round, yet I here give the statements he 
 made to me, as received from his father. His impression 
 is that the servant in question was a German, but of this 
 he is not sure. She had been enticed away by, or had 
 gone to the house of, a low family who lived in the fields 
 near where the Jacksons reside, about a mile from Leeds,- 
 on the road to Catskill. As she refused to return and 
 fulfil her contraft to labor, and behaved badly in other 
 respedls, Mr. S tied her with a rope, which he fast- 
 ened around his own body ; and hence, when the horse 
 became frightened and ran, he was thrown to the ground, 
 and was in danger of being killed. He gave himself up 
 to the court, who, on learning the fa£ls in the case, acquit- 
 ted him and let him go free. He died in the autumn of 
 
 1 80 1, a few months after his grandson. General S , 
 
 was born. His will, dated February 2, 1800, I have seen. 
 The family have two swords, one marked 1550, and the 
 other 1635, which have come down to them from their 
 first ancestor in this country, a man of high military ranjc 
 and command. 
 
 July 25, 1813, a young lady named Sally Hamilton, 
 
IS6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 daughter of Samuel Hamilton, Esq., of the upper village 
 in Athens, in Greene County, opposite Hudson, in a 
 thickly-settled part of the village, was left by friends within 
 twenty rods of her father's house ; and three days after 
 her body was found half a mile above the bridge of the 
 creek, north of the village, as far up as a boat could go 
 or the tide could bear it. The skull and cheek bone were 
 broken ; her hands were much injured ; and there were 
 marks of blows on her breast : but no other violence had 
 been offered her. The stifled cries of a woman in distress 
 were heard in the village, as also eighty rods beyond the 
 creek, and there was blood on the timbers of the bridge. 
 She was a young lady of unimpeachable character, attract- 
 ive in her person, highly respeftable in her connections, 
 and in a good degree accomplished. The coroner's jury 
 brought in a verdifl that her death was caused by some 
 person or persons unknown ; and unknown they still are, 
 after a period of more than half a century. DiflFerent per- 
 sons were at times suspe6ted of being connefted with the 
 murder ; and one man charged with it was tried, but was 
 forthwith fully acquitted. 
 
 A brief sketch of Rev. Mr. Stimson, of Windham, in 
 Greene County, a pioneer settler there, has been given in 
 this work. There are others of the same class, who 
 deserve a record here. 
 
 Rev. Beriah Hotchkin, from New Haven County, Con- 
 nefbicut, came to Greene County in 1 792, and is said to have 
 been the first missionary from New England to the white 
 settlers west of the Hudson River. Like Roger Sherman, 
 of Revolutionary fame, a native of the same State, and 
 others who have risen to distinction, he was a self-made 
 man, and a shoemaker. He founded most of the Presby- 
 terian churches in the county, including those in Catskill, 
 Cairo, Greenville, Windham, and Durham ; and labored 
 
And the Region Around: 157 
 
 with energy and success in Greenville from 1792 until 
 1824, soon after which he died. He was a sound and able 
 divine, dignified, venerable, and much esteemed and 
 beloved. Like Dr. Porter, of Catskill, he wore the small- 
 clothes of early times until he died. His son, Rev. James 
 H. Hotchkin, who entered the ministry in 1801, pubHshed 
 in 1848 a very useful and instniftive work of five hundred 
 pages oftavo, on the settlement of Western New York 
 by the whites, and the rise and progress of the Presby- 
 terian Church in that region. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Williston^ pastor of the Presbyterian Church 
 in Durham from 1810 until 1828, was born in SuflSeld, 
 Connefticut, in 1770 ;• was a graduate of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege in 1787, and a fine scholar ; had once as a pupil the 
 celebrated Unitarian divine, Dr. Channing, of Boston ; 
 was a very grave, devout, and able minister ; and published 
 many tra£t:s, sermons, and theological treatises. His 
 thorough conscientiousness, deep-toned and earnest piety, 
 and familiar knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, have 
 rarely been equalled or surpassed. He died in 1S54, in 
 the eighty-first year of his age. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Porter, of Catskill, was a native of Hebron, 
 Connefticut ; was born in 1761 ; was ten months in our 
 Revolutionary army ; graduated at Dartmouth College 
 with high rank as a scholar, in 1784 ; came to Catskill in 
 1803, when it was small, and by his energy, talents, learn- 
 ing, thorough knowledge of men, and his ability and piety 
 as a Christian preacher, did more than any other man to 
 form and control the early religious charafter of the place. 
 He died in Catskill in 1851, in the ninetieth year of his 
 age. 
 
 Mr. Samuel L. Penfield, a native of Fairfield, Connefli- 
 cut, came to Catskill as a clerk, when sixteen years of 
 age ; was long a merchant in the place, a man of intelli- 
 
ijS The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 gence, energy, strift integrity, and uncommon purity and 
 worth ; and was for many years an elder in Dr. Porter's 
 church. He and his pastor, who for forty-five years had 
 together lived and labored, and prayed and praised the 
 Lord of all, justly loving and esteeming each other in 
 advanced years with matured Christian piety, died the 
 same day and the same hour of the day. " Lovely and 
 pleasant in their lives, in their death they were not 
 divided." Together their spirits ascended to heaven, to- 
 gether were their bodies borne to the house of God, where 
 they had so often united in prayer and praise, and to- 
 gether were they laid in their graves. It was as if Elijah 
 and Elisha had together, from the banks of the Jordan, 
 gone up to heaven, or from the summit of Tabor or of 
 Olivet our Saviour had taken the beloved disciple with 
 him up to heaven. 
 
 Hon. Daniel Sayre came from Long Island to Cairo in 
 1794, was a pioneer there, and long a leading man in the 
 place. He was one of the founders of the Presbyterian 
 Church, a member of the Legislature, and a county 
 judge. January 8, 1808, his house was burned in the 
 night ; and four of his children, one son and three 
 daughters, aged four, seven, eleven, and fifteen years, 
 perished in the flames. Their funeral sermon, by Dr. 
 Porter, with the fa6ls in the case, was published ; and the 
 tradition of the sad event will long live in all the region 
 round. 
 
 Early in my professional life I preached for a time in 
 Litchfield, Connefticut, where I had a home with two 
 ladies of the name of Pierce and their brother, all of 
 them advanced in life and unmarried. The ladies of the 
 family had long carried on a female boarding-school, said 
 to have been the first one in point of time in our country, 
 and continued so long that three generations in the same 
 
And the Region Arnind. 159 
 
 family had in some cases been educated in the school. 
 Their brother, John Pierce, was Paymaster-General of 
 our Revolutionary army through the whole of the war ; 
 having been selefted for that office and appointed to it 
 by the special urgency and effort of General Washington, 
 as one " in whose ability and integrity he had entire con- 
 fidence," as is learned from his letters. Our National 
 House of Representatives, also, at the close of the war, 
 passed a vote of thanks to Mr. Pierce, as one whose 
 "heart was pure and his hands clean." 
 
 Mr. Pierce married a daughter of Dr. Bard, an eminent 
 physician in New York, who was the medical attendant 
 of General Washington when he was in the city. Ruth 
 Pierce, a sister of John, was born in Litchfield, February 
 22, 1765, so that she was ten years old when the Revolu- 
 tionary War began, and sixteen when it closed. Her 
 family connexions, as stated above, led her to be ac- 
 quainted with General Washington and his family. At 
 the age of twenty-four she witnessed his inauguration as 
 President of the United States ; and she ever afterwards 
 retained a distinct and lively impression of his majestic 
 and commanding form and bearing, as, stepping forth 
 upon the balcony of the old Federal Hall, in New York, 
 which stood where the Custom-House now does, he 
 there received the oath of office, in the presence of an 
 immense crowd of spe6lators. 
 
 After this, Miss Pierce was invited to take tea with 
 General Washington's family, at a time when he was 
 severely, if not dangerously ill with quinsy. While she 
 was there Dr. Bard came in from the General's room, 
 looking very grave, and related what had passed between 
 them. Washington, knowing the danger there was of 
 his dying from suffocation, said, " Doftor, if I am to die, 
 do not hesitate to tell me of it I am quite prepared. If 
 
i6o The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 it be the will of God, I am prepared to fall asleep, and 
 in this world never wake again." 
 
 In 1791 Miss Pierce was married to Dr. Thomas O. 
 H. Croswell, and the next year removed to Catskill, in 
 the infancy of the village, where, as a refined and intelli- 
 gent Christian lady, she lived seventy years, highly and 
 justly beloved and esteemed. On removing to CatskiU, 
 I early sought her acquaintance, and learned from her 
 the story of her early life, as she was then in full posses- 
 sion of her faculties ; and she went abroad until her death, 
 which took place January 7, 1862, at the age of ninety-six 
 years, ten months, and fifteen days. 
 
 Of about the same age with Mrs. Croswell was Mrs. 
 Maria Seeley, who died at a later date. She was a par- 
 ishioner of mine, and I often visited her in her old age. 
 Her mind was weakened by age and infirmity ; and she 
 had a distinfl recoUeftion of the beginning and whole 
 course of the Revolutionary War, as it raged on the 
 bloody ground of Ulster County, where the burning of 
 Kingston, the frequent savage raids of Indians and tories, 
 with the massacre and frequent carrying away into cap- 
 tivity of those around her, made a deep impression on her 
 mind. She used often to apologize to me for her want of 
 early education, by saying that when she was young the 
 schools were all broken up by the war. 
 
 In the Life of Washington, by Washington Irving, vol. 
 iv., page 312, and elsewhere, we have a record of events 
 referred to above, which is as follows : 
 
 " Washington was inaugurated April 30, 1789. At nine 
 o'clock there was prayer in all the churches. At twelve 
 the city troops presented themselves before his door. At 
 half-past twelve the procession moved, with the Commit- 
 tees of Congress and Heads of Departments, in carriages, 
 to the place of inauguration." 
 
And the Region Around. i6i 
 
 In vol. v., pages 21, 22, of the same work, we have the 
 following account of General Washington's sickness, al- 
 ready referred to. * Speaking of his early Presidential life, 
 Irving says, " It was interrupted by an attack of anthrax " 
 (a general inflammation of the throat, tending to mortifi- 
 cation, and much more extended than quinsy, which com- 
 monly alTedls only the tonsils and upper part of the throat). 
 " For several days he was threatened with mortification, 
 and a knowledge of his dangerous condition caused great 
 alarm in the community. He, however, was unagitated. 
 His medical adviser was Dr. Samuel Bard, an excellent 
 physician and estimable man, who attended him with unre- 
 mitting assiduity. When, at a certain time, alone with 
 Washington, the President looked steadily at him and 
 asked him his candid opinion of the probable result of his 
 sickness, and said to him, with placid firmness, ' Doftor, 
 do not flatter me with vain hopes ; I am not afraid ; I can 
 bear the worst' The doftor told him that there was 
 ground for hope, but yet there was also reason for appre- 
 hension as to the result. 'Whether I die to-night or 
 twenty years hence,' said Washington, ' makes no differ- 
 ence to me. I know that I am in the hands of a Good 
 Providence.' His sufferings were intense, and his recov- 
 ery slow. For six weeks he could lie only on his right 
 side. After a time he had a carriage so contrived that he 
 could lie in it at full length, and thus take exercise in the 
 open air." 
 
 II 
 
i62 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Catskill Mountains, by Irving. — ^Their Name. — Description of 
 Them. — The AUeghanies. — Their Extent. — Hudson River. — A Voyage on it 
 — ^An Indian Trader. — Early Legends. — Storms and Clouds. — American Cli- 
 mate and Scenery. — Gold among the Catskills. — Governor Kieft. — Van der 
 Donk. — De La Montague.— Arent Corseu. — Van Slechtenhorst. — Death of 
 Kieft— Silver Ore.— Search for it— Fearful Rain Storm.— Its Effeas.— 
 History of Van der Donk. — His Writings. — Sketch of La Montagne. — Van 
 Slyke's Patent — Claims of Van Rensselaer and Others.— The Silver Mine. 
 —The Tempest— Colonel Stone.— Catskill, the Valley of Cauterskill, and 
 the Mountains. — Lawrences. — ^The Mountain House. — View from thence. — 
 A Thunder Storm. 
 
 THE sketch which follows is from a work entitled 
 " Spanish Papers, and other Miscellanies hith- 
 erto unpublished or uncolletSed, by Washing- 
 ton Irving, arranged and edited by Pierre M. Irving, in 
 two volumes. New York, 1866." What is here given is 
 from vol. ii., pages 480-487 : 
 
 The Catskill, Katskill, or Cat River Mountains, 
 derived their name in the time of the Dutch Domination, 
 from the catamounts by which they were infested, and 
 which, with the bear and the deer, are still found in some 
 of their most difficult recesses. The interior of these 
 mountains is in the highest degree wild and romantic. 
 Here are rocky precipices mantled with primeval forests, 
 deep gorges walled in by beetling cliffs, with torrents tum- 
 bling as it were from the sky, and savage glens rarely trod- 
 den except by the hunter. With all this internal rude- 
 ness, the aspeft of these mountains towards the Hudson 
 at times is eminently bland and beautiful, sloping down 
 into a country softened by cultivation and bearing much 
 
And the Region Around. 163 
 
 of the rich charatEler of Italian scenery about the skirts 
 of the Appenines. 
 
 The Catskills form an advanced post or lateral spur of 
 the great Alleghanian or Appalachian system of moun- 
 tains, which sweeps through the interior of our continent 
 from southwest to northeast, from Alabama to the ex- 
 tremity of Maine, for nearly fourteen hundred miles, belt- 
 ing the whole of our original confederacy, and rivalling 
 our great system of lakes in extent and grandeur. Its vast 
 ramifications comprise a number of parallel chains and 
 lateral groups, such as the Cumberland Mountains, the- 
 Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies, the Delaware and Lehig^V, 
 the Highlands of the Hudson, the Green Mount-,ins of 
 Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 
 In many of these vast ranges or sierras Na*-jre still 
 reigns in indomitable wildness ; their rocky ndges, their 
 nigged clefts and defiles teem with magnificent vegeta- 
 tion. Here are locked up mighty forests that have never 
 been invaded by the axe ; deep umbrageous valleys, where 
 the virgin soil has never been outraged by the plough ; 
 bright streams flowing in untasked idleness, unburdened 
 by commerce, unchecked by the milldam. This moun- 
 tain zone is, in faft, the great poetical region of our 
 country, resisting, like the tribes which once inhabited it, 
 the taming hand of cultivation, and maintaining a hallowed 
 ground for fancy and the Muses. It is a magnificent and 
 all-pervading feature that might have given our country 
 a name, and a poetical one, had not the all-controlling 
 powers of commonplace determined otherwise. 
 
 The Catskill Mountains, as I have observed, maintain 
 all the internal wildness of the labyrinth of mountains 
 with which they are connedted. Their detached position, 
 overlooking a wide lowland region, with the majestic 
 Hudson rolling through it, has given them a distinft 
 
164 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 chara£ler, and rendered them, at all times, a rallying 
 point for romance and fable. Much of the fanciful asso- 
 ciations with which they have been clothed may be owing 
 to their being peculiarly subjedt to those beautiful atmos- 
 pherical effedls, which constitute one of the great charms 
 of Hudson River scenery. To me they have ever been 
 the fairy region of the Hudson. I speak, however, from 
 early impressions, made in the happy days of boyhood, 
 when all the world had a tinge of fairyland. I shall never 
 forget my first view of these mountains. It was in the 
 course of a voyage up the Hudson, in the good old times, 
 tafore steamboats and railroads had driven all poetry and 
 romance out of travel. A voyage up the Hudson in those 
 days w.;-; equal to a voyage to Europe at present, and 
 cost alnlipst as much time ; but we enjoyed the river then ; 
 we relish^ it as we did our wine, sip by sip ; not as at 
 present, gulping all down at a draught, without tasting it. 
 My whole voyage up' the Hudson was full of wonder and 
 romance. I was a lively boy, somewhat imaginative, of 
 easy faith, and prone to relish everything that partook 
 of the marvellous. Among the passengers on board the 
 sloop was a veteran Indian trader, on his way to the 
 Lakes, to traiBc with the natives. He had discovered my 
 propensity, and amused himself throughout the voyage by 
 telling me Indian legends and grotesque stories about 
 every noted place on the river, such as Spuyten Devil 
 Creek, the Tappan Sea, the Devil's Dans Kammer, and 
 other hobgoblin places. The CatskiU Mountains, espe- 
 cially, called forth a host of fanciful traditions. We were 
 all day slowly tiding along in sight of them, so that he 
 had full time to weave his whimsical narratives. In these 
 mountains, he told me, according to Indian belief, was 
 kept the great treasury of storm and sunshine for the 
 region of the Hudson. An old squaw spirit had charge 
 
And the Region Around. 165 
 
 of it, who dwelt on the highest peak of the mountain. 
 Here she kept day and night shut up in her wigwam, let- 
 ting out only one of them at a time. She made new 
 moons every month, and hung them up in the sky, cut- 
 ting up the old ones into stars. The great Manitou or 
 master spirit employed her to manufaflure clouds. 
 Sometimes she wove them out of cobwebs, gossamers, 
 and morning dew, and sent them off, flake after flake, 
 to float in the air and give light summer showers. 
 Sometimes she would brew up black thunder-storms, 
 and send down drenching rains, to swell the streams and 
 sweep everything away. He had many stories, also, 
 about mischievous spirits, who infested the mountains, 
 in the shape of animals, and played all kinds of pranks 
 upon Indian hunters, decoying them into quagmires and 
 morasses, or to the brinks of torrents and precipices. All 
 these were doled out to me as 1 lay on the deck, through- 
 out a long summer's day, gazing upon these mountains, 
 the ever-changing shapes and hues of which appeared to 
 realize the magical influences in question. Sometimes 
 they seemed to approach, at others to recede ; during the 
 heat of the day they almost melted into a sultry haze ; as 
 the day declined they deepened in tone ; their summits 
 were brightened by the last rays of the sun, and later in 
 the evening their whole outHne was printed in deep purple 
 against an amber sky. As I beheld them, thus shifting 
 continually before my eye, and listened to the marvel- 
 lous legends of the trader, a host of fanciful notions con- 
 cerning them was conjured into my brain, which have 
 haunted it ever since. 
 
 As to the Indian superstitions concerning the treasury 
 of storms and sunshine and the cloud-weaving spirits, they 
 may have been suggested by the atmospherical phenomena 
 of these mountains, the clouds which gather round their 
 
i€6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 summits, and the thousand aerial effefls which indicate 
 the changes of weather over a great extent of country. 
 They are epitomes of our variable climate, and are stamped 
 with all its vicissitudes. And here let me say a word in 
 favor of those vicissitudes, which are too often made the 
 subjefl of exclusive repining. If they annoy us occasion- 
 ally by changes from hot to cold, from wet to dry, they 
 give us one of the most beautiful climates in the world, — 
 the brilliant sunshine of the south of Europe, with the 
 fresh verdure of the north. They float our summer sky 
 with clouds of gorgeous tints or fleecy whiteness, and send 
 down cooling showers to refresh the panting earth and 
 keep it green. Our seasons are all poetical, the pheno- 
 mena of our heavens are full of sublimity and beauty. 
 Winter, with us, has none of its proverbial gloom. It 
 may have its howling winds and chilling frosts and whirl- 
 ing snow-storms ; but it has also its long intervals of cloud- 
 less sunshine, when the snow-clad earth gives redoubled 
 brightness to the day ; when, at night, the stars beam with 
 intensest lustre, or the moon floods the whole landscape 
 with her most limpid radiance ; and then the joyous out- 
 break of our spring, bursting at once into leaf and blos- 
 som, redundant with vegetation, and vociferous with life. 
 And the splendors of our summer, — its morning volup- 
 tuousness and evening glory, — its airy palaces of sun-gilt 
 clouds, piled up in a deep azure sky, and its gusts of tem- 
 pest of almost tropical grandeur, when the forked light- 
 ning and the bellowing thunder volley from the battlements 
 of heaven and shake the sultry atmosphere ; and the sub- 
 lime melancholy of our autumn, magnificent in its decay, 
 withering down the pomp and pride of a woodland coun- 
 try, yet reflefting back from its yellow forests the golden 
 serenity of the sky ! Surely, we may say, in our climate, 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma- 
 
And the Region Around. 167 
 
 ment showeth forth His handiwork : day unto day uttereth 
 speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." 
 
 A word more concerning the Catskills. It is not the 
 Indians only to whom they have been a kind of wonder- 
 land. In the early times of the Dutch dynasty we find 
 them themes of golden speculation, among even the sages 
 of New Amsterdam. During the administration of Wilhel- 
 mus Kieft, there was a meeting between the Direftor of the 
 New Netherlands and the chiefs of the Mohawk Nation, to 
 conclude a treaty of peace. On this occasion the Direftor 
 was accompanied by Mynheer Adrian Van der Donk, 
 Doftor of Laws, and subsequently historian of the Colony. 
 The Indian cliiefs, as usual, painted and decorated them- 
 selves on the ceremony. One of them, in so doing, made 
 use of a pigment, the weight and shining appearance of 
 which attrafted the notice of Kieft and his learned com- 
 panion, who suspefted it to be ore. They procured a lump 
 of it and took it back with them to New Amsterdam. Here 
 it was submitted to the inspeftion of Johannes de la Mon- 
 tague, an eminent Huguenot, Doftor of Medicine, one of 
 the Counsellors of the New Netherlands. The supposed 
 ore was forthwith put into a crucible and assayed, and to 
 the great exultation of the junto, yielded two pieces of 
 gold worth about three guilders. This golden discovery , 
 was kept a profound secret. As soon as the treaty of 
 peace was adjusted with the Mohawks, William Kieft sent 
 a trusty oflScer and a party of men, under guidance of an 
 Indian, who undertook to condufl them to the place where 
 the ore had been found. We have no account of this gold- 
 hunting expedition, nor of its whereabouts, except that it 
 was somewhere on the Catskill Mountains. The explor- 
 ing party brought back a bucket full of ore. Like the 
 former specimen, it was submitted to the crucible of De 
 la Montague, and was equally produftive of gold. All 
 
1 68 The Catskill Mountams, 
 
 this we have on the authority of Doftor Van der Donk, 
 who was an eye-witness to the process and its result, and 
 records the whole in his " Description of the New Nether- 
 lands." 
 
 William Kieft now dispatched a confidential agent, one 
 Arent Corsen, to convey a sackful of the precious ore to 
 Holland. Corsen embarked at New Haven in a British 
 vessel bound to England, whence he was to cross to Rot- 
 terdam. The ship set sail about Christmas, but never 
 reached port. All on board perished. 
 
 In 1647, when the redoubtable Petrus Stuyvesant took 
 command of the New Netherlands, William Kieft em- 
 barked on his return to Holland, provided • with further 
 specimens of the Catskill Mountain ore, from which he 
 doubtless indulged golden anticipations. A similar fate 
 attended him with that which had befallen his agent. The 
 ship in which he had embarked was cast away, and he and 
 his treasure were swallowed up in'\he waves. 
 
 Here closes the golden legend of the Catskills, but 
 another one of a similar import succeeds. In 1679, about 
 two years after the shipwreck of Wilhelmus Kieft, there 
 was again a rumor of the precious metals in these moun- 
 tains. Mynheer Brant Arent Van Slechtenhorst, agent of 
 the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck, had purchased, in behalf 
 of the Patroon, a traft of the Catskill lands, and leased it 
 out in farms. A Dutch lass, in the household of one of the 
 farmers, found one day a glittering substance, which, on 
 being examined, was pronounced silver ore. Brant Van 
 Slechtenhorst forthwith sent his son from Rensselaers- 
 wyck to explore the mountains in quest of the supposed 
 mines. The young man put up in the farmer's house 
 which had recently been erefted on the margin of a moun- 
 tain stream. Scarcely was he housed when a furious storm 
 burst forth on the mountains. The thunders rolled, the 
 
And the Region Around. 169 
 
 lightnings flashed, the rain came down in catarafts ; the 
 stream was suddenly swollen to a furious torrent thirty 
 feet deep ; the farmhouse and all its contents were swept 
 away, and it was only by dint of excellent swimming that 
 young Slechtenhorst saved his own life, and the lives of 
 his horses. Shortly after this a feud broke out between 
 Peter Stuyvesant and the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck, on 
 account of the right and title to the Catskill Mountains, 
 in the course of which the elder Slechtenhorst was taken 
 captive by the potentate of the New Netherlands, and 
 thrown into prison at New Amsterdam. 
 
 We have met with no record of any further attempt to 
 get at the treasures of the Catskills. Adventurers may 
 have been discouraged by the ill luck which appeared to 
 attend all who meddled with them, as if they were under 
 the guardian keep of the same spirits or goblins who once 
 haunted the mountains and ruled over the weatlier. That 
 gold and silver ore was aftually procured from these moun- 
 tains in days of yore we have historical evidence to prove ; 
 and the recorded word of Adrian Van der Donk, a man 
 of weight, who was an eye-witness. If gold and silver 
 were once to be found there, they must be there at present. 
 It remains to be seen, in these gold-hunting days, whether 
 the quest will be renewed ; and some daring adventurer, 
 with a true Californian spirit, will penetrate the mysteries 
 of these mountains, and open a golden region on the bor- 
 ders of the Hudson. 
 
 The fadls which follow were collefled by the author 
 from various historical sources. 
 
 Adrian Van der Donk, spoken of above, was a free citi- 
 zen of Breda, in Holland ; graduated at the University of 
 Leyden ; became a learned lawyer, and received the De- 
 gree of Doftor both of Civil and of Canon Law ; was an 
 Advocate in the Supreme Court of Holland ; and was the 
 
170 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 first lawyer who pradlised in New York. He came to 
 America in 1641, as Sheriff of the Colony of Rensse- 
 laerwyck, in the region of Albany. In 1643 he made an 
 attempt to purchase lands at Catskill, but was defeated by 
 the Patroon, Van Rensselaer, who coveted that region for 
 himself. He afterwards removed to the Manhattans, now 
 New York, and obtained a grant of land where Yonkers 
 now is, which was made a Manor, and he was its Patroon. 
 Having returned to Holland, he came to America again 
 in 1653, his family having removed here the previous 
 year. He published a " History of New Netherlands " in 
 1650, and a second edition in 1653, which has been trans- 
 lated by Hon. Mr. Johnson, of Brooklyn. He was per- 
 mitted to give advice to clients, but not to plead in the 
 courts, as the good Dutch fathers thought that the pleas 
 of lawyers in court consumed useful time without being 
 of much account. 
 
 Dr. Johannes La Montague, a learned Huguenot, of 
 whom Irving speaks, was born in 1592, and came to this 
 country in 1637. He commanded expeditions against the 
 Indians near the city, and in 1643 saved Governor Kieft 
 from assassination. His farm, called Vredendal, or Val- 
 ley of Peace, was east of the Eighth Avenue, and extend- 
 ed from Ninety-third street north to Harlem River. It 
 contained two hundred acres, and was bought for seven 
 hundred and twenty dollars, of the heirs of Hendrick De- 
 forest, deceased, ancestor of the Deforests in Connefticut 
 and the region around. 
 
 August 22, 1646, Governor Kieft issued a patent to 
 Cornells Antonissen Van Slyck, of Bruckelen (Brooklyn), 
 for the land of Catskill, lying on the River Mauritius 
 (the Hudson being then so called by the Dutch, in honor 
 of Maurice, Prince of Nassau), there to plant with his 
 associates a colony. This was in return for what Van 
 
And the Region Around. 171 
 
 Slyck had done for " this country as well in making 
 peace as in the ransoming of prisoners." Kieft thus set at 
 nought the claims of the Patroon, Van Rensselaer, which 
 had also been formally denied in the proceedings against 
 Koorn in 1644. 
 
 April 19, 1649, coveting the region extending from his 
 possessions south to Catskill, and disregarding the patent 
 which Governor Kieft had granted to Van Slyck three 
 years before, the Patroon procured through his agent, 
 Van Slechtenhorst, a cession to himself of the Indian title 
 to the Catskill lands. 
 
 May 24, 1650, the claims of proprietors in the colony, 
 to the territory about Catskill, were openly denied by the 
 Dutch West India Company, under whose orders Gover- 
 nor Stuyvesant prohibited any settlements there by ten- 
 ants claiming to hold under leases which had been granted 
 by the authorities of Rensselaerwyck. Those thus for- 
 bidden wished to refer the question to Holland for deci- 
 sion, promising, in the meantime, to refrain from further 
 aftion in the matter. 
 
 July I, 1652. — The sale by the Indians, to Van Slech- 
 tenhorst and others, of lands at Catskill and Claverack, 
 was declared void by Governor StU3rvesant, and the pre- 
 tended proprietors were to return the purchase money to 
 those who had obtained lands from them. But if those 
 holding these lands would, within six weeks, petition the 
 Direftor and Council, they might retain such lands as 
 should then be assigned to them. All persons were also 
 forbidden to purchase lands of the Indians without the 
 previous consent of the Governor and Council. The 
 Amsterdam Chamber, however, afterwards gave grants 
 free from any feudal patronage or patroonship, to the pur- 
 chasers of lands near Catskill, Claverack, and Renssel- 
 aerwyck. 
 
172 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 A little before the date last given, namely, in Septem- 
 ber, 1650, Van Slechtenhorst, who had just escaped from 
 Manhattan, where he had been detained four months by 
 Governor Stuyvesant for opposing and disobeying him, by 
 direftions from Holland sent his son Gerrit to the Cats- 
 kill Mountains in search of a silver-mine. Some time 
 previous to this a farmer's daughter at Catskill had found 
 a stone which some thought to be silver. This led, in 
 the end, to the search for a mine. As soon, however, as 
 young . Gerrit had reached the Patroon's newly estab- 
 lished bouwery, or plantation there, there was a heavy 
 rain-storm, so that in three hours the mountain torrent 
 there rose thirty feet, the farmhouse was swept into the 
 kill or creek, and all the cattie and horses would have 
 perished but for the exertions of Gerrit, who was an ex- 
 cellent swimmer. The ruin which the flood had caused 
 diverted all thought of immediate explorations, and the 
 hope of finding a silver-mine in the Catskill Mountains 
 was postponed. 
 
 The following sketch of Catskill and the Catskill Moun- 
 tains, is by William L. Stone, Esq., formerly editor of the 
 New York " Commercial Advertiser,'' a well-known his- 
 torical and political writer. 
 
 Colonel Stone visited the mountains in 1824, and pub- 
 lished in the paper of which he was editor, the following 
 account of what he saw and heard. Of Catskill he says, 
 " Its Dutch founders, with charafteristic prudence, placed 
 it entirely out of sight from the river, probably to render 
 themselves secure from bombardment by a foreign fleet, 
 and from invasion from the armies of Yankees, which for- 
 merly so much annoyed our primitive settlements." The 
 lovely valley of the Cauterskill, three miles west of Cats- 
 kill, on the road to the mountains, he thus describes : 
 " The traveller is here cheered by one of the most charm- 
 
And the Region Aromtd. 173 
 
 ing landscapes, though of small extent, that we recolleft 
 to have seen. The beauty of this romantic spot is un- 
 doubtedly heightened by contrast with the country around. 
 A water prospeft is supplied by the Cauterskill, which 
 winds Its way through the valley. The eye lingers on the 
 rich fields and green meadows, diversified with fruit and 
 forest trees, with delight." 
 
 The author of this work has for years passed and re- 
 passed through this valley weekly or oftener, and always 
 with peculiar pleasure. The valley, for several miles along 
 the creek, is of great fertility and beauty, with numerous 
 grassy hillocks and proje6Hng spurs from the hills on 
 either side ; those on the east being of gentle and grace- 
 ful descent, while on the west is a high, precipitous, wood- 
 ed cliif, down which, after heavy rains, a mountain torrent 
 wildly rushes. The creek, too, so winds its way in grace- 
 ful curves through the valley, as within a short distance to 
 run towards every point of the compass ; presenting, as 
 seen from some places, the appearance of several different 
 streams, advancing and retreating, sporting and dall)fing 
 with each other, in their onward course. In viewing this 
 fertile and lovely valley, I have often thought of the words 
 of the inspired poet of Israel, where he says of the Most 
 High, " Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, thy 
 paths drop down fatness. They drop upon the pastures 
 of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. 
 The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are 
 covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also 
 sing." The valley of the Kiskatom, too, farther on, with 
 its flowing streams, its gentle hills on one side, and tower- 
 ing mountains on the other, richly dotted with fruit and 
 forest trees, and extending, with its teeming fertility and 
 verdure for miles in extent, along the eastern base of the 
 mountains — this valley is one to which, for produflive- 
 
174 ^'^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ness, grandeur, and beauty in and around, it were not 
 easy to find a parallel elsewhere. 
 
 At Lawrence's Hotel, at the foot of the mountains 
 (since burned, and replaced by the dwelling-house of my 
 late friend and neighbor, Joseph Sax), Colonel Stone saw 
 a tame bear, such as were often kept there to attraft and 
 amuse guests, and as but three cents were charged for an 
 introduction to King Bruin, he had many visitors and 
 friends. 
 
 Of the Mountain House and the mountain. Colonel 
 Stone thus writes : " The rock on which the Mountain 
 House stands projefts out like a circular platform beyond 
 the regular line of the ridge. On reaching the front of 
 the house the tremendous prospeft suddenly opens below 
 and before you. Burke remarks that height has less 
 grandeur than depth, and that we are more struck at 
 looking down from a precipice than in looking up to an 
 objeft of equal height. The correctness of this opinion 
 will not be questioned by those who from below have 
 looked up to the hotel almost without emotion, and who 
 again have looked down from these shelving cliflFs with 
 giddy heads and trembling, breathless interest." " No 
 one," says an elegant writer, " mounts a towering emi- 
 nence but feels his soul elevated ; the whole frame acquires 
 unwonted elasticity, and the spirits flow as it were in one 
 aspiring stream of satisfaction and delight : for what can 
 be more animating than from one spot to behold the 
 pomp of man and the pride of nature lying at our feet ? 
 Who can refrain from being charmed when looking down 
 upon a vast extent of country, with its mountains and 
 cliffs, its hillsides and valleys, its fields and glens, the 
 cottages of the lowly and the mansions of the rich, its 
 flocks and herds, and its broad, expansive river, sweeping 
 its course along an extended vale, now encircling a moun- 
 
And the Region Around. 175 
 
 tain, and now overflowing a valley, here gliding beneath 
 overhanging trees, and then in grand cascades or mighty 
 catarafls rolling over rocky ledges of lofty mountain 
 cliffs." 
 
 Of the morning glories of the mountain. Colonel Stone 
 says^ " As the day advanced, and the rays of light darted 
 thicker and brighter across the heavens, the purple clouds 
 which hung over the hills in the east were fringed with a 
 saffron dye of inexpressible beauty ; while a deeper glow 
 was imparted to the centre, where the sun was about to 
 appear in all his majesty and glory. 
 
 " Such is the elevation of this portion of the Catskills 
 that storms of rain and snow are not unfrequently below, 
 while all is clear and serene on the mountain's top. A 
 friend at the hotel described to us a thunder-gust he had 
 witnessed a few days before. The top of the mountain 
 was cloudless through the day. At two P. m. clouds 
 began to coUedl on the mountain-side below, which 
 increased rapidly, as thick columns of vapor came rolling 
 and surging along, rising apparently from the deep glens 
 and ravines of the mountains to the south. Then a 
 heavy, dark cloud from the east, an immense mass of 
 vapor, spread over the valley. Opposing currents of 
 clouds flowed onwards, mingling together, forming a vast 
 canopy of darkness, suspended in mid air. The thunder 
 muttered and roared like an earthquake below. The 
 lightning, brighter than the sun above, played upon the 
 upper surface of the clouds like tBe crinkling scintilla- 
 tions along the conduftor of a powerful eleftrical ma- 
 chine, while now and then a vivid, dazzling flash, from 
 the highly charged artillery of heaven, brought with it a 
 report, by which the awe-struck speftator was led to feel 
 as well as see the violence of the storm, which was heav- 
 ing and raging beneath his feet; a spectacle sublime 
 
176 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 beyond expression, with no feeling of terror, or of fear 
 of injury from a storm, so far below the lofty mountain- 
 top. 
 
 " Viewing from above the wide expanse of country be- 
 low, under the bright sunlight of Heaven, where things 
 large and grand look, in the distance, so slight and small, 
 one is led wisely to refledt on the insignificance and the 
 vain and trifling pursuits of man. If to us, thus raised 
 but a little above those around us, man's possessions and 
 labors seem so small, how must the saint in Heaven look 
 down upon human toils and cares and greatness, here 
 on this little globe of earth so far beneath him ! " 
 
TITE FAWN'S LEAP. 
 
And the Region Around. 177 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Catskill Creek.— Hudson and the Indians. — Road to the Mountains.— Onti 
 Ora.— Cole, the Artist.— His Paintmgs.— Sketch of the Road.— Rip Van 
 Winkle's Cabin. — The Mountain House. — View from it — Cloud Mirror. — 
 North and South Mountains.— The Lakes.— The Falls.— Cauterskill Clove. 
 — The Fawn's Leap. — Falensvitle. — Cooper's " Pioneers." — The Mountains 
 and Falls.— Rip Van Winkle.— Sketch of Him.— His Trip up the Moun- 
 tains. — His Companion. — Playing at Ninepins. — Hard Drinking. — A Long 
 Nap. — Waking Up. — Return Home. — Changes there. 
 
 AN able author and artist, after speaking of Catslcill 
 as lying at the mouth of Catskill Creek, a clear 
 and beautiful stream that flows down from the 
 hill-country of Schoharie County for nearly forty miles, 
 thus writes : " It was near Catskill that the Half Moon, 
 Hendrick Hudson's vessel, anchored September 20, 1609, 
 and was detained all the next day on account of the great 
 number of natives who came on board and had a merry 
 time." Master Juet, one of Hudson's companions, says, 
 in his journal, " Our master and his mate determined to 
 trie some of the chefe men of the country, whether they 
 had any treacherie in them. So they tooke them down into 
 the cabbin and gave them so much wine and aqua vitas 
 that they were all merrie ; and one of them had his wife 
 with him, which sate so modestly as any of our country- 
 women would doe in a strange place. In the ende, one of 
 them was drunke, which had been aboord our ship all the 
 time, that we had beene there ; and that was strange to 
 them, for they could not tell how to take it The canoes 
 . 12 
 
178 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and folks all went on shore ; but some of them came 
 again, and brought stropes of beades (wampum made of 
 the clam shell) ; some had six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 
 and gave him (that is, Hudson). So he (the Indian) slept 
 all night quietly. The savages did not venture on board 
 until noon the next day, when they were glad to find their 
 old companion that was so drunk quite well again. They 
 then brought on board tobacco and more beads, which 
 they gave to Hudson, and made an oration ; and after- 
 wards sent for venison, which was brought on board." 
 
 From Catskill, at the distance of eight miles in an air 
 line, the Mountain House may be seen. The river is 
 crossed on a steam ferry-boat, and omnibuses convey 
 travellers to the pleasant village of Catskill, half a mile 
 from the landing. From thence conveyances take the 
 tourist to the Mountain House, twelve miles distant, 
 through a pifturesque and highly cultivated country, to 
 the foot of the mountains. From the banks of the Hud- 
 son, a few miles into the country, may be seen from dif- 
 ferent points of view some of the most charming scenery 
 in the world. Every turn in the road, every bend in the 
 stream, presents new and attraftive pidtures, remarkable 
 for beauty and diversity in outline, color, and aerial 
 perspeftive. The solemn Katzbergs, sublime in form, and 
 mysterious in their dim, incomprehensible, and ever- 
 changing aspefl, almost always form a prominent feature 
 in the landscape. 
 
 The Indians called these mountains "Onti Ora,'' or 
 " Mountains of the Sky ; " for, in some conditions of the 
 atmosphere, they are said to appear like a heavy cumulose 
 cloud above the horizon. In the midst of this scenery. 
 Cole, the eminent painter, delighted to linger when the 
 shadows of the early morning were projefted toward^ the 
 mountains, then bathed in purple mists ; or at evening. 
 
And the Region Around. 179 
 
 when these lofty heights, then dark and awful, cast their 
 deep shadows over more than half of the country below 
 between their bases and the river. Charmed with Catskill 
 and its vicinity. Cole made it at first a summer retreat, and 
 finally his permanent residence ; and there, in a fine old 
 family mansion, delightfully situated to command a full 
 view of the mountains and the intervening country, his 
 spirit passed from earth ; while a sacred poem, created by 
 his wealthy imagination and deep religious sentiment, was 
 finding expression upon his easel in a series of fine pic- 
 tures like those of " The Course of Empire " and the 
 " Voyage of Life.'' He entitled the series " The Cross 
 and the World." Two of them were unfinished. One 
 had found form in a " study " only, while the other was 
 half finished upon the large canvas, with some figures 
 sketched in white chalk. So they remain, just as the 
 master left them ; and so remains his studio. It is regard- 
 ed by his devoted widow as a place too sacred for the com- 
 mon gaze. The stranger never enters it. 
 
 The mountains rise abruptly from tlie plain on their 
 eastern side, where the road that leads to the Mountain 
 House enters them, and follows the margin of a deep, 
 dark glen, through which flows a clear mountain stream, 
 seldom seen by the traveller, but heard continually for 
 nearly a mile, as in swift rapids or in little cascades it hur- 
 ries to the plain below. The road is winding, and in its 
 ascent along the side of the glen, or, more properly, mag- 
 nificent gorge, it is so inclosed by the towering heights on 
 one side, and the lofty trees that shoot up on the other, 
 that little can be seen beyond a few rods except the sky 
 above or glimpses of some distant summit, until the pleas- 
 ant nook in the mountain is reached wherein the Rip Van 
 Winkle cabin is nestled. After that the course of the road 
 is more nearly parallel with the river and the plain, and 
 
i8o The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 through frequent vistas glimpses may be caught of the 
 country below that charm the eye, excite the fancy and 
 imagination, and make the heart throb quicker and stronger 
 with pleasurable emotions. Rip's cabin is a small, white 
 building, with two rooms, where travellers formerly ob- 
 tained refreshments ; and is at the head of the gorge along 
 whose margin the traveller has ascended. It is so called 
 because it stands within the amphitheatre, inclosed by 
 lofty heights, reputed to be the place where the ghostly 
 ninepin players held their revel ; and where Rip Van 
 Winkle lay down to his long repose. From a rude spout 
 by the cabin there pour cooling draughts from a mountain 
 spring, more delicious than ever came from the juice of 
 the grape. 
 
 There are many delightful resting-places upon the road, 
 soon after leaving Rip's cabin, as we toil wearily up the 
 mountain, where the eye takes in a magnificent panorama 
 of hill and valley, forest and river, hamlet and village, and 
 thousands of broad acres, where herds graze and the farmer 
 gathers his crops ; much of it dimly defined because of 
 distance, a beautifully colored map rather than a pidture. 
 These delight the eye and quicken the pulse ; but there is 
 one place upon the road where the ascending weary ones 
 enjoy more exquisite pleasure, for a moment, than at any 
 other point in all that mountain region. It is at a turn in 
 the road where the Mountd3p House stands ; suddenly, 
 before and above the traveller, revealed in perfect distinft- 
 ness, column, capital, window, rock, people, — all appar- 
 ently only a few rods distant. There too the road is level, 
 and the traveller rejoices in the assurance that the toilsome 
 journey is at an end, when suddenly, like the young pil- 
 grim in Cole's "Voyage of Life," he finds himself disap- 
 pointed in his course. The road that seemed to be lead- 
 ing direflly to that beautiful mansion upon the crag just 
 
And the Region Around. i8i 
 
 above him turns away, like the stream that appeared to be 
 taking the ambitious young man diredtly to the shadowy 
 temple of fame in the clouds ; and many a weary step 
 must be taken over a steep, crooked road before the trav- 
 eller can reach the objedt of his journey. 
 
 The grand rock platform on which the Mountain House 
 stands is reached at last, and then comes the full recom- 
 pense for all weariness. Bathed, immersed, in pure 
 mountain air, almost three thousand feet above tide- 
 water, full, positive, enduring rest is given to every mus- 
 cle, after half an hour's respiration of that invigorating 
 atmosphere, and soul and limb are ready for a longer, 
 loftier, and more rugged ascent. There is something in- 
 describable in the pleasure experienced during the first 
 hour passed upon the piazza of the Mountain House, 
 gazing upon the scene towards the east. That view has 
 been described a thousand times. I shall not attempt it. 
 Much rhetoric and rhyme, with sentimental platitudes, 
 have been employed in describing it. 
 
 The serial pictures seen from the Mountain House are 
 sometimes marvellous, especially during a shower in the 
 plain, when all is sunshine above, while the lightning 
 plays and the thunder rolls far below those upon the 
 summits ; or after a storm, when mists are driving over 
 the mountains, struggling with the wind and sun, or dis- 
 solving in the pure air. At rare intervals an apparition, 
 like the spectre of the Brocken, may be seen. A late 
 writer, who was there during a summer storm, was fa- 
 vored with the sight. The guests were in the parlor 
 when it was announced that " the house was going past, 
 on the outside." All rushed to the piazza ; and there, 
 sure enough, upon a moving cloud more dense than the 
 fog that enveloped the mountains, was a perfe£l pidlure 
 of the great building, in colossal proportions. The mass 
 
1 83 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 of vapor was passing slowly from north to south, direftly 
 in front, at a distance apparently of two hundred feet from 
 the house, and reflefted the noble Corinthian columns 
 which ornament the front of the building, every window, 
 and all the speftators. The cloud moved on, and ere 
 long we saw one pillar disappear, and then another. We, 
 ourselves, who were expanded into giants in size, saw the 
 gulf into which we were to enter and be lost. I almost 
 shuddered when my turn came ; but there was no escap- 
 ing my fate ; one side of my face was veiled, and in a 
 moment the whole had passed like a dream. An instant 
 before, and we were the inhabitants of a gorgeous palace ; 
 but it was the "baseless fabric of a vision,'' and now. 
 there was left "not a wreck behind." 
 
 Although the Mountain House is far below the higher 
 summits of the range, yet portions of four States of the 
 Union and an area of about ten thousand square miles 
 are comprised in the scope of vision from its piazza. 
 From the top of the South Mountain, near and three 
 hundred feet above the Mountain House, and of the 
 North Mountain more distant and higher, a greater range 
 of sight may be obtained, including part of a fifth State. 
 The lakes, lying in a basin a short distance from the 
 Mountain House, with all their grand surroundings, the 
 house itself, the South Mountain, and the Roundtop or 
 Liberty Cap, form the middle ground ; while in the dim 
 distance the winding Hudson, with Esopus, Shawangunk, 
 and the Highland ranges are revealed, the borders of 
 rivers dotted with villas and towns, appearing mere white 
 specks on the landscape. 
 
 Two miles and a half from the Mountain House is an 
 immense gorge scooped from the rugged hills, into which 
 pours the gentle outlet of the Cauterskill Lakes, in a 
 fall, first of one hundred and seventy-five feet, and close 
 
And the Region Around. 183 
 
 to it another of eighty feet If the visitor would enjoy 
 one of the wildest and most romantic rambles in the 
 world, let him follow that little streanci in its way off the 
 mountains, down the deep, dark, mysterious gorge, until 
 it joins the Cauterskill proper, that rushes through the 
 Clove from the neighborhood of Hunter, among the hills 
 above, and thence onward to the plain. The tourist, if 
 he fails to traverse the rugged gorge, should not omit a 
 ride from the Mountain House, down through the Clove, 
 to Palensville and the plain, a distance of eight miles. 
 After leaving the falls and reaching the Clove, down, 
 down, sometimes with only a narrow space between the 
 base of a high mountain on one side and steep precipices 
 on the other, whose feet are washed by the rushing Caut- 
 erskill, our crooked road pursued its way, now passing a 
 log house, now a pleasant cottage, and at length the ruins 
 of a leather-manufadluring village, deserted because the 
 bark upon the hills around, used for tanning, is exhausted. 
 Near this pidluresque scene the Cauterskill leaps into a 
 seething gulf between the cleft rocks and flows gently on, 
 to make still greater plunges into darker depths a short 
 distance below. This cleft is called the " Fawn's Leap," 
 a young deer having there escaped a hunter and his dog, 
 that pursued to the verge of the chasm. The fawn leaped 
 it ; but the dog, attempting to follow, fell into the gulf 
 below and was drowned. The foiled hunter went home 
 without dog or game. By some, less poetical than others, 
 the place is called the " Dog Hole." A few rods below 
 the Fawn's Leap the road crosses a rustic bridge, at the 
 foot of a sheer precipice, and for half a mile traverses a 
 shelf cut from the mountain side, two hundred feet above 
 the stream that has found its way into depths so dark as 
 to be hardly visible. Upon the opposite side of the creek, 
 a perpendicular wall rises many hundred feet ; and then, in 
 
184 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 slight inclination, the mountain towers up at least a thou- 
 sand feet higher, and forms a portion of the range known 
 as the South Mountain. At the mouth of this cavernous 
 gorge lies the pretty little village of Palensville, where we 
 again cross the stream, and in a few moments find our- 
 selves upon a beautiful and highly cultivated plain. From 
 this point, along the base of the mountains to the road 
 by which we enter them, or more dire£tly to. Catskill, the 
 drive is a delightful one. 
 
And the Region Around. 185 
 
 EXTRACT FROM COOPER'S "PIONEERS," 
 Volume I., Pages 105-109. 
 
 " I have travelled the woods for fifty-three years,'' said 
 Leather-Stocking, "and have made them my home for 
 more than forty : and I can say that I have met but one 
 place that was more to my liking ; and that was only to 
 eyesight, and not for hunting or fishing." 
 
 " And where was that ? " asked Edwards. 
 
 " Where ! why, up on the Catskills. I used often to go 
 up into the mountains after wolves' skins and bears ; once 
 they brought me to get them a stuffed painter ; and so I 
 often went. There's a place in them hills that I used to 
 climb to when I wanted to see the carryings on of the 
 world, that would well pay any man for a barked shin or a 
 torn moccasin. You know the Catskills, lad, for you must 
 have seen them on your left, as you followed the river up 
 from York, looking as blue as a piece of clear sky, and 
 holding the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curls over 
 the head of an Indian chief at a council fire. Well, there's 
 the High-peak and the Round-top, which lay back, like a 
 father and mother among their children, seeing they are 
 fax above all the other hills. But the place I mean is next 
 to the river, where one of the ridges juts out a little from 
 the rest, and where the rocks fall for the best part of a 
 thousand feet so much up and down that a man stand- 
 ing on their edges is fool enough to think he can jump 
 from top to bottom." 
 
 " What see you when you get there ? " asked Edwards. 
 
 " Creation ! " said Natty, dropping the end of his rod 
 into the water, and sweeping one hand around him in a 
 
1 86 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 circle, " all creation, lad. I was on that hill when Vaughan 
 burnt Sopus, in the last war ; and I seen the vessels come 
 out of the Highlands as plainly as I can see that lime-scow 
 rowing into the Susquehanna, though one was twenty times 
 further from me than the other. The river was in sight 
 for seventy miles under my feet, looking like a curled sha- 
 ving, though it was eight long miles to its banks. I saw 
 the hills in the Hampshire grants, the high lands of the 
 river, and all that God had done or man could do, as far 
 as the eye could reach, — you know that the Indians named 
 me for my sight, lad, — ^and, from the flat on the top of that 
 mountain, I have often found the place where Albany 
 stands ; and, as for Sopus, the day the royal troops burned 
 the town the smoke seemed so nigh that I thought I could 
 hear the screeches of the women." 
 
 " It must have been worth the toil to meet with such a 
 glorious view." 
 
 " If being the best part of a mile in the air, and having 
 men's farms and houses at your feet, with rivers looking 
 like ribands, and mountains bigger than the 'Vision ' seem- 
 ing to be haystacks of green grass under you, gives any 
 satisfaftion to a man, I can recommend the spot. When 
 I first came into the woods to live, I used to have weak 
 spells, and I felt lonesome ; and then I would go to the 
 Catskills and spend a few days on that hill, to look at the 
 ways of man ; but it's now many a year since I felt any 
 such longings, and I'm getting too old for these rugged 
 rocks. But there's a place, a short two miles back of that 
 very hill, that in late times I relished better than the moun- 
 tains ; for it was more kivered by the trees, and more 
 nateral." 
 
 " And where was that ? " inquired Edwards, whose 
 curiosity was strongly excited by the simple description 
 of the hunter. 
 
And the Region Around. 187 
 
 " Why, there's a fall in the hills, where the water of two 
 little ponds that lie near each other breaks out of their 
 bounds, and runs over the rocks into the valley. The 
 stream is, may be, such a one as would turn a mill, if so 
 useless a thing was wanted in the wilderness. But the 
 hand that made that ' Leap ' never made a mill. There 
 the water comes crooking and winding among the rocks, 
 first so slow that a trout could swim in it, and then start- 
 ing and running just like any Greater that wanted to make 
 a fair spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides like 
 the cleft hoof of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook 
 to tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, 
 and the water looks like flakes of driven snow afore it 
 touches the bottom ; and there the stream gathers itself 
 together again for a new start, and maybe flutters over 
 fifty feet of flat rock, before it falls for another hundred, 
 when it jumps about from shelf to shelf, first turning this- 
 a-way and then turning that-a-way, striving to get out of 
 the hollow, till it finally comes to the plain." 
 
 " I have never heard of this spot before," exclaimed 
 Edwards ; " it is not mentioned in the books." 
 
 " I never read a book in my life," said Leather-Stock- 
 ing ; " and how should a man who has lived in towns and 
 schools know anything about the wonders of the woods ? 
 No, no, lad ; there has that little stream of water been 
 playing among them hills since He made the world, and 
 not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes upon it. The 
 rock sweeps like mason-work, in a half-round, on both 
 sides of the fall, and shelves over the bottom for fifty feet ; 
 so that when I've been sitting at the foot of the first pitch, 
 and my hounds have run into the caverns behind the sheet 
 of water, they've looked no bigger than so many rabbits. 
 To my judgment, lad, it's the best piece of work that I've 
 met with in the woods ; and none know how often the 
 
1 88 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 hand of God is seen in a wilderness but them that rove it 
 for a man's life." 
 
 " What becomes of the water ? in which direction does 
 it run ? is it a tributary of the Delaware ? " 
 
 " Anan ! " said Natty. 
 
 " Does the water run into the Delaware ? " 
 
 " No, no : it's a drop for the old Hudson ; and a merry 
 time it has till it gets down off the mountain. I've sat on 
 the shelving rock many a long hour, boy, and watched the 
 bubbles as they shot by me, and thought how long it would 
 be before that very water which seemed made for the wil- 
 derness would be under the bottom of a vessel, and toss- 
 ing in the salt sea. It is a spot to make a man solemnize. 
 You can see right down into the valley that lies to the east 
 of the High-peak, where, in the fall of the year, thousands 
 of acres of woods are before your eyes in the deep hol- 
 low and along the side of the mountain, painted like ten 
 thousand rainbows by no hand of man, though not with- 
 out the ordering of God's providence." 
 
 " Why, you are eloquent, Leather-Stocking," exclaimed 
 the youth. 
 
And the Region Around. 189 
 
 RIP VAN WINKLE. 
 
 A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker. From 
 Irving's " Sketc/t-JSook," Volume /., Page 45. 
 
 By Woden, God of Saxons, 
 
 From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, 
 
 Truth is a thing that ever I will keep, 
 
 Untothylke day in which I creep into 
 
 My sepulchre — CaHtvrigJd. 
 
 Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must re- 
 member the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismem- 
 bered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are 
 seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble 
 height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every 
 change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every 
 hour of the day, produces some change in the magic hues 
 and shapes of these mountains ; and they are regarded 
 by all the good wives, far and near, as perfefl barometers. 
 When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in 
 blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear 
 evening sky ; but sometimes, when the rest of the land- 
 scape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors 
 about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting 
 sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. 
 
 At the foot of these fairy mountains the voyager may 
 have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, 
 whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees just where 
 the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green 
 of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great 
 antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch col- 
 
I go The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 onists in the early times of the province, just about the 
 beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyve- 
 sant (may he rest in peace !) ; and there were some of the 
 houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, 
 built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, hav- 
 ing latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with 
 weathercocks. 
 
 In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
 (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn 
 and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while 
 the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, 
 good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He 
 was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so 
 gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and 
 accompanied him to the siege of Christina. He inherited, 
 however, but little of the martial charadler of his ances- 
 tors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured 
 man ; he was moreover a kind neighbor, and an obedient, 
 henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance 
 might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him 
 such universal popularity ; for those men are most apt to 
 be obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the 
 discipline of shrews at home. Thei-r tempers, doubt- 
 less, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery 
 furnace of domestic tribulation ; and a curtain-le6lure is 
 worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues 
 of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may 
 therefore, in some respefts, be considered a tolerable 
 blessing ; and, if so. Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 
 
 Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the 
 good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable 
 sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never 
 failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their 
 evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van 
 
And the Region Around. 191 
 
 Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout 
 with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their 
 sports, niade their playthings, taught them to fly kites 
 and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, 
 witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about 
 the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hang- 
 ing on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a 
 thousand tricks on him with impunity ; and not a dog 
 would bark at him throughout the neighborhood. 
 
 The great error in Rip's composition was an insuper- 
 able aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could 
 not be from want of assiduity or perseverance ; for he 
 would sit on a wet rock with a rod as long and heavy as 
 a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even 
 though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. 
 He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours 
 together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up 
 hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. 
 He would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the 
 roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country 
 frolics for husking Indian corn or building stone fences. 
 The women of the village, too, used to employ him to run 
 their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less 
 obliging husbands would not do for them, — in a word, 
 Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his 
 own ; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm 
 in order, he found it impossible. 
 
 In fadt he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; 
 it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole 
 country; everything about it went wrong and would go 
 wrong in spite of him. His fences were continually falling 
 to pieces ; his cows would either go astray or get among the 
 cabbages ; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields 
 than anywhere else ; the rain always made a point of set- 
 
192 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ting in just as he had some out-door work to do ; so that 
 his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his man- 
 agement, acre by acre, until there was little more left than 
 a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the 
 worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 
 
 His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they 
 belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in 
 his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits with the 
 old clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping 
 like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his 
 father's cast-ofif galligaskins, which he had much ado to 
 hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in 
 bad weather. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 
 mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the 
 world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be 
 got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve 
 on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he 
 would have whistled life away in perfect contentment ; but 
 his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his 
 idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing 
 on his family. 
 
 Morning, noon and night, her tongue was incessantly 
 going ; and everything he said or did was sure to produce 
 a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way 
 of replying to all leftures of the kind ; and that, by fre- 
 quent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his 
 shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said 
 nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley 
 from his wife, so that he was fain to draw off his forces, 
 and take to the outside of the house, the only side which, 
 in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. 
 
 Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who 
 was as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van 
 
And the Region Around. 193 
 
 Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and 
 even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of 
 his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all 
 points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as 
 courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods ; but 
 what courage can withstand the everduring and all-beset- 
 ting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The moment Wolf 
 entered the house his crest fell, his tail dropped to the 
 ground or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with 
 a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame 
 Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or 
 ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation. 
 
 Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as 
 years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never mel- 
 lows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool 
 that grows keener with constant use. For a long while 
 he used to console himself, when driven from home, by 
 frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philo- 
 sophers, and other idle personages of the village, which 
 held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designa- 
 ted by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George III. 
 Here they used to sit in the shade, of a long lazy sum- 
 mer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling 
 endless, sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have 
 been worth any statesman's money to have heard the pro- 
 found discussions which sometimes took place, when by 
 chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some 
 passing traveller. Hqw solemnly they would listen to the 
 contents, as drawled by Derrick Van Bummell, the school- 
 master, a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be 
 daunted by the most gigantic word in the diflionary ; 
 and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events 
 some months after they had taken place ! 
 
 The opinions of this junto were completely controlled 
 13 
 
194 ^'^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and land- 
 lord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat 
 from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid 
 the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree ; so that 
 the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as 
 accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely 
 heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His 
 adherents, however (for every great man has his adher- 
 ents), perfedlly understood him, and knew how to gather 
 his opinions. When anything that was read or related 
 displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehe- 
 mently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs ; 
 but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and 
 tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and 
 sometimes taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the 
 fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his 
 head in token of perfeft approbation. 
 
 From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at 
 length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly 
 break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage, and call 
 the members all to nought ; nor was that august person- 
 age, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring 
 tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright 
 with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. 
 
 Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair ; and his 
 only alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and 
 the clamor of his wife was to take gun in hand, and stroll 
 away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat 
 himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his 
 wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow- 
 sufferer in persecution. " Poor Wolf! " he would say, 
 " thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it ; but nevermind, 
 my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to 
 stand by thee." Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully 
 
And the Region Around. 195 
 
 in his master's face ; and, if dogs can feel pity, I verily 
 believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart. 
 
 In a long ramble of the kind, on a fine autumnal day, 
 -Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest 
 parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was after his favor- 
 ite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes had 
 echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Pant- 
 ing and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, 
 on a green knoll covered with mountain herbage, that 
 crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening be- 
 tween the trees he could overlook all the lower country 
 for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance 
 the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its 
 silent but majestic course, with the refledlion of a purple 
 cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark here and there sleep- 
 ing on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the 
 blue highlands. 
 
 On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain 
 glen, wild, lonely and shagged, the bottom filled with frag- 
 ments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by 
 the reflefted rays of the setting sun.* For some time 
 Rip lay musing on this scene ; evening was gradually 
 advancing ; the mountains began to throw their long blue 
 shadows over the valleys ; he saw that it would be dark 
 long before he could reach the village ; and he heaved a 
 heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors 
 of Dame Van Winkle. 
 
 As he was about to descend he heard a voice from 
 a distance, hallooing, " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Win- 
 kle ! " He looked around, but could see nothing but a 
 crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He 
 
 * The glen here described is passed by the visitor to the Mountain House 
 during the first mile of ascent in climbing the mountain. It begins near the 
 gate, and ends at the " Shanty." 
 
196 Tfte Catskill Mountaijts, 
 
 thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned 
 again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through 
 the still evening air, " Rip Van Winlde ! Rip Van Win- 
 kle ! " — at the same time time Wolf bristled up his back, 
 and, giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, 
 looking fearfully down into the glejj. Rip now felt a vague 
 apprehension stealing over him : he looked anxiously in 
 the same dire6lion, and perceived a strange figure slowly 
 toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of 
 something he carried on his back. He was surprised to 
 see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented 
 place ; but, supposing it to be some one of the neigbor- 
 hood in need of assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 
 
 On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the 
 singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, 
 square-built old fellow, with thick, brushy hair and a griz- 
 zled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion : 
 a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist ; several pairs of 
 breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with 
 rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. 
 He bore on his shoulders a stout keg, that seemed full of 
 liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach, and assist 
 him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of 
 this new acquaintance. Rip comphed with his usual alac- 
 rity ; and, mutually relieving each other, they clambered 
 up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain 
 torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard 
 long, rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to 
 issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft between lofty 
 rocks, toward which their rugged path condudled. He 
 paused for an instant ; but, supposing it to be the mutter- 
 ing of one of those transient thunder-showers which often 
 take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing 
 through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small 
 
And the Region Around. . 197 
 
 amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, 
 over the banks of which impending trees shot their 
 branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure 
 sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole 
 time. Rip and his companion had labored on in silence ; 
 for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the 
 objedl of carrying a ke'g of liquor up this wild mountain, 
 yet there was something strange and incomprehensible 
 about the unknown that inspired awe, and checked fam- 
 iliarity. 
 
 On entering the amphitheatre, new objedls of wonder 
 presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was 
 a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. 
 They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion : some 
 wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in theii 
 belts ; and most of them had enormous breeches, of simi- 
 lar style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were 
 peculiar ; one h^ a large head, broad face, and small pig- 
 gish eyes ; the face of another seemed to consist entirely 
 of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, 
 set oflF with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, 
 of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed 
 to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, 
 with a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- 
 let, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, 
 red stockings, and high-heeled shoes with roses in them. 
 The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old 
 Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, 
 the village parson, and which had been brought over from 
 Holland at the time of the setdement. 
 
 What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though 
 these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they 
 maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, 
 and were withal the most melancholy party of pleasure he 
 
198 . The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of 
 the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they 
 were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling 
 peals of thunder. 
 
 As Rip and his companion approached them they sud- 
 denly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such 
 a fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack- 
 lustre countenances, that his heart turned within him, and 
 his knees smote together. His companion now emptied 
 the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs 
 to him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear 
 and trembling ; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, 
 and then returned to their game. 
 
 By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He 
 even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste 
 the beverage, which he found had much of the flavor of 
 excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and 
 was soon tempted to repeat the draught. ' One taste pro- 
 voked another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so 
 often, that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes 
 swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell 
 into a deep sleep. 
 
 On waking he found himself on the green knoll from 
 whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He 
 rubbed his eyes, — it was a bright sunny morning. The 
 birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and 
 the eagle was wheeling aloft and breasting the pure moun- 
 tain breeze. " Surely," thought Rip, " I have not slept 
 here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he 
 fell asleep, — the strange man with the keg of liquor, the 
 mountain ravine, the wild retreat among the rocks, thfe 
 woe-begone party at ninepins, the flagon. " Oh ! that 
 wicked flagon ! " thought Rip, « what excuse shall I make 
 to Dame Van Winkle ? " 
 
And the Region Arouftd. 199 
 
 He looked round for his gun ; but in place of the clean, 
 well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by 
 him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and 
 the stock worm-eaten. He now suspefted that the grave 
 roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, 
 having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. 
 Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed 
 away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, 
 and shouted his name, but all in vain ; the ech«es repeated 
 his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. 
 
 He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's 
 gambol, and, if he met with any of the party, to demand 
 his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself 
 stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual aiSivity. " These 
 mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip ; "and, 
 if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, 
 I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." 
 With some difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found 
 the gully up which he and his companion had ascended 
 the preceding evening ; but to his astonishment a moun- 
 tain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to 
 rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, how- 
 ever, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toil- 
 some way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch- 
 hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild 
 grapevines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree 
 to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. 
 
 At length he reached to where the ravine had opened 
 through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no traces of 
 such opening remained. The rocks presented a high, im- 
 penetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in 
 a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, 
 black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, 
 then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called 
 
200 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and whistled after his dog : he was only answered by the 
 cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about 
 a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice, and who, 
 secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff 
 at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done ? 
 The morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for 
 want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and 
 gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife ; but it would not do to 
 starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shoul- 
 dered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble 
 and anxiety, turned his steps homeward. 
 
 As he approached the village he met a number of people, 
 but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, 
 for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in 
 the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different 
 fashion from that to which he was accustomed.' They all 
 stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever 
 they cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. 
 The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip in- 
 voluntarily to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he 
 found his beard had grown a foot long ! 
 
 He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop 
 of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, 
 and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one 
 of which he recognized for an old acquaintance, barked 
 at him as he passed. The very village was altered ; it 
 was larger and more populous. There were rows of 
 houses which he had never seen before, and those which 
 had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange 
 names were over the doors, strange faces at the windows; 
 everything was strange.. His mind now misgave him ; h6 
 began to doubt whether both he and the world around 
 him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native vil- 
 lage, which he had left but a day before. There stood the 
 
And the Region Around. 201 
 
 Kaatskill Mountains ; there ran the silver Hudson at a 
 distance ; there was every hill and dale precisely as it 
 had always been. Rip was sorely perplexed. "That 
 flagon last night," thought he, " has addled my poor head 
 sadly." 
 
 It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his 
 own house, which he approached with silent awe, expedl- 
 ing every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van 
 Winkle. He found the house gone to decay, — the roof 
 fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors ofiF the 
 hinges. A half-starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was 
 skulking about it. Rip called him by name ; but the cur 
 snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an 
 unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed poor Rip, 
 "has forgotten me." 
 
 He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame 
 Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was 
 empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This des- 
 olateness overcame all his connubial fears ; he called 
 loudly for his wife and children ; the lonely chambers 
 rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was 
 silence. 
 
 He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, 
 the village inn ; but it too was gone, A large, rickety 
 wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping 
 windows, some of them broken, and mended with old 
 hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The 
 Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the 
 great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn 
 of yore, there now was reared a tall, naked pole, with 
 something on the top that looked hke a red nightcap, and 
 from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular as- 
 semblage of stars and stripes ; all this was strange and 
 incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, 
 
202 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked 
 so many a peaceful pipe ; but even this was singularly 
 metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of 
 blue and buif; a sword was held in the hand instead of a 
 sceptre ; the head was decorated with a cocked hat ; and 
 underneath was painted, in large charafters. General 
 Washington. 
 
 There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, 
 but none that Rip recoUefted. The very character of the 
 people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, 
 disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed 
 phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the 
 sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, 
 and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke in- 
 stead of idle speeches ; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, 
 doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In 
 place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his 
 pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently 
 about rights of citizens, eleftion, members of Congress, 
 liberty. Bunker's Hill, heroes of seventy-six, and other 
 words that were a perfeft Babylonish jargon to the 
 bewildered Van Winkle. 
 
 The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, 
 his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army 
 of women and children that had gathered at his heels, 
 soon attrafted the attention of the tavern politicians. 
 They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot 
 with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, 
 drawing him partly aside, inquired on which side he 
 voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short 
 but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising 
 on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, whether he was Federal 
 or Democrat. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend 
 the question ; when a knowing, self-important old gentle- 
 
And the Region Aroimd. 203 
 
 man, in a sharp cocked hat, made his waj' through the 
 crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows 
 as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, 
 with one arm a-kimbo, the other resting on his cane, his 
 keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating as it were into his 
 very soul, demanded in an austere tone what brought him 
 to the eleftion with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his 
 heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village. 
 
 " Alas, gentlemen ! " cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, 
 " I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a 
 loyal subje£l of the King, God bless him ! " 
 
 Here- a general shout burst from the bystanders : " A 
 tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with 
 him ! " It was with great difficulty that the self-important 
 man in the cocked hat restored order ; and, having as- 
 sumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the 
 unknown culprit what he came there for, and whom he 
 was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he 
 meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some 
 of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern. 
 
 " Well, who are they ? — name them." 
 
 Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, — 
 « Where's Nicholas Vedder ? " 
 
 There was a silence for a little while, when an old man 
 replied, in a thin, piping voice, " Nicholas Vedder ? why, 
 he is dead and gone these eighteen years. There was a 
 woodei^ tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all 
 about him, but that's rotten and gone too.'' 
 
 " Where's Brom Dutcher ? " 
 
 " Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the 
 war ; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony 
 Point ; others say he was drowned in the squall, at the 
 foot of Antony's Nose. I don't know, — ^he never came 
 back again." 
 
204 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 " Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster ? " 
 
 "He went off to the wars too, was a great militia gene- 
 ral, and is now in Congress." 
 
 Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes 
 in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone 
 in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating 
 of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he 
 could not understand, — war, Congress, Stony Point He 
 had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried 
 out in despair, " Does nobody here know Rip Van Win- 
 kle ? " 
 
 "Oh! Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or. three-; 
 " Oh, to be sure I that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning 
 against the tree." 
 
 Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself 
 as he went up the mountain ; apparently as lazy, and cer- 
 tainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely 
 confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether 
 he was himself or another man. In the midst of his be- 
 wilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he 
 was, and what was his name ? 
 
 " God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end. " I'm 
 not myself; I'm somebody else; that's me yonder; no, 
 that's somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself 
 last night ; but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've 
 changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm 
 changed, and I can't tell what's my name, or who I am.'' 
 
 The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, 
 wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their fore- 
 heads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the 
 gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief; at 
 the very suggestion of which the self-important man with 
 the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this 
 critical moment a fresh, comely woman passed through 
 
A7id the Region Around. 205 
 
 the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She 
 had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his 
 looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, 
 you little fool ; the old man won't hurt you.'' The name 
 of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, 
 all awakened a train of recoUeftions in his mind. " What 
 is your name, my good woman ? " asked he. 
 
 " Judith Gardenier." 
 
 " And your father's name ? " 
 
 " Ah, poor man ! his name was Rip Van Winkle ; it's 
 twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, 
 and never has been heard of since ; his dog came home 
 without him ; but whethw he shot himself, or was carried 
 away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a 
 little girl." 
 
 Rip had but one question more to ask ; but he put it 
 with a faltering voice : 
 
 " Where's your mother ? " 
 
 Oh, she too 4iad died but a short time since : she broke 
 a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England pedlar. 
 
 There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelli- 
 gence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. 
 He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. " I 
 am your father," cried he, — "Young Rip Van Winkle 
 once, — old Rip Van Winkle now. Does nobody know 
 poor Rip Van Winkle ? " 
 
 All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out 
 from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and 
 peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, 
 " Sure enough, it is Rip Van Winkle ! — ^it is himself. 
 Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why, where have 
 you been these twenty long years ? " 
 
 Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years 
 had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared 
 
206 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 when they heard it ; some were seen to wink at each 
 other, and put their tongues in their cheeks ; and the self- 
 important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm 
 was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the 
 corners of his mouth and shook his head, — upon which 
 there was a general shaking of the head throughout the 
 assemblage. 
 
 It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old 
 Peter Vanderdonk, who was ■ seen slowly advancing up 
 the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that 
 name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the pro- 
 vince. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the vil- 
 lage, and well versed in all the wonderful events and tra- 
 ditions of the neighborhood. He recoUefled Rip at once, 
 and corroborated his story in the most satisfaflory man- 
 ner. He assured the company that it was a faft, handed 
 down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill 
 Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings ; 
 that it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the 
 first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of 
 vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half 
 Moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes 
 of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river 
 and the great city called by his name ; that his father 
 had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at 
 ninepins in a hollow of the mountain ; and that he him- 
 self had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their 
 balls like distant peals of thunder. 
 
 To make a long story short, the company broke up, and 
 returned to the more important concerns of the eleftion. 
 Rip's daughter took him home to live with her ; she had a 
 snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery farmer for 
 a husband, whom Rip recoUefted for one of the urchins 
 that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and 
 
And the Regiofi Around. 207 
 
 m 
 
 heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against 
 the tree, he was employed to work on the farm ; but 
 evinced a hereditary disposition to attend to anything else 
 but his business. 
 
 Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
 found many of his former cronies, though all rather the 
 worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred mak- 
 ing friends among the rising generation, with whom he 
 soon grew into great favor. 
 
 Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at 
 that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, 
 he took his place once more on the bench, at the inn 
 door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the 
 village, and a chronicle of the old times " before the war." 
 It was some time before he could get into the regular 
 track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the 
 strange events that had taken place during his torpor, — 
 how that there had been a revolutionary war ; that the 
 country had thrown oflf the yoke of old England ; and 
 that, instead of being a subjedl of His Majesty George 
 III., he was now a free citizen of the United States. 
 Rip, in faft, was no politician ; the changes of states 
 and empires made but little impression on him ; but there 
 ■was one species of despotism under which he had long 
 groaned, and that was petticoat government. Happily that 
 was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of 
 matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, 
 without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. 
 Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook 
 his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes ; 
 which might pass either for an expression of resignation 
 to his fate, or joy at his deliverance. 
 
 He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived 
 at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to 
 
2o8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 *. 
 vary on some points every time he told it, which was 
 doubtless owing to his having so recently awaked. It at 
 last settled down precisely to the tale I have related ; and 
 not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but 
 knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the 
 reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his 
 head, and that this was one point on which he always 
 remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, 
 almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, 
 they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon 
 about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and 
 his crew are at their game of ninepins ; and it is a com- 
 mon wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighbor- 
 hood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they 
 might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's 
 flagon. 
 
And the Region Around. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Willis Gaylord Clark.— His Sketch of the Mountains, the Road to them and 
 Views from them.— Similar Sketches by Tyrone Power, N. -P. Willis, Park 
 Benjamin, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Ellett, Dr. Murdoch, Bayard Taylor, 
 and Rev. Dr. Cuyler. 
 
 SKETCHES BY WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 YOU would scarcely think, arrived at Kaatskill 
 Landing, on the Hudson, that, just before you 
 enter the coach which conveys you to the 
 mountain, any extraordinary prospefl was about to open 
 upon your vision. True, as when on the water, the great 
 cloud Presence looms afar, yet there is a long level coun- 
 try between it and you ; and it is too early in the day to 
 drink in the grandeur of the scene. 
 
 As you move along from the landing, by pleasant 
 and quiet waters, and through scenes of pastoral tran- 
 quillity, you seem to be threading a road which leads 
 through a peaceful and variegated plain. You lose 
 the memory of the highlands and the river in the thought 
 that you are taking a journey into a country as level 
 as the lowliest land in Jersey. Sometimes the moun- 
 tains, as you turn a point of the road, appear afar ; but 
 " are they clouds, or are they not ? " By the mass, 
 you shall hardly tell. Meantime, you are a ^/az«- travel- 
 ler, a quiet man. All at once you are wheeled upon a 
 vernal theatre, some five or six miles in width, at whose 
 extremity the bases of the Kaatskills 'gin to rise. How 
 14 
 
2IO The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 impressive the westering sunshine, sifting itself down the 
 mighty ravines and hollows, and tinting the far-off sum- 
 mits with aerial light ! How majestic yet soft the grada- 
 tions from the ponderous grandeur of the formation ; up, 
 up to the giddy and delicate shadowings, which dimly 
 veil and sanftify their tops, as "sacristies of nature," 
 where the cedar rocks to the wind, and the screaming 
 eagle snaps his mandibles, as he sweeps a circuit of miles 
 with one fuU impulse of his glorious wing ! Contrasting 
 the roughness of the basis with the printed beauty of the 
 iris-hued and ski'ey ultimatum, I could not but deem that 
 the bard of " Thanatopsis " had well applied to the Kaats- 
 kills those happy lines wherein he apostrophizes the 
 famous heights of Europe : 
 
 " Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines, 
 In the soft light of your serenest skies ; 
 From the broad highland region, dark with pines. 
 Fair as the hills of paradise, ye rise I " 
 
 Be not too eager, as you take the first stage of the moun- 
 tain, to look about you ; especially, be not anxious to look 
 afar. Now and then, it is true, as the coach turns, you 
 cannot choose but see a landscape to the south and east, 
 farther off than you ever saw one before, broken up into 
 a thousand vistas ; but look you at them with a sleepy, 
 sidelong eye, to the end that you may finally receive from 
 the Platform the full glory of the final view. In the 
 meantime, there is enough direftly about you to employ 
 all your eyes, if you had the ocular endowments of an 
 Argus. Huge rocks, that might have been sent from war- 
 ring Titans, decked with moss, overhung with rugged 
 shrubbery, and cooling the springs that trickle from 
 beneath them, gloom beside the way ; vast chasms, which 
 your coach shall sometimes seem to overhang, yawn on 
 the left ; the pine and cedar-scented air comes freely and 
 
And the Region Around. 2 1 1 
 
 sweetly from the brown bosom of the woods ; until, one 
 high ascent attained, a level for a while succeeds, and 
 your smoking horses rest, while, with expanding nostril, 
 you drink in the rarer and yet rarer air a stillness like the 
 peace of Eden (broken only by the whisper of leaves, the 
 faint chant of embowered birds, or the distant notes that 
 come " mellowed and mingling from the vale below"), 
 hangs at the portal of your ear. It is a time to be still, to 
 be contemplative ; to hear no voice but your own ejacula- 
 tions, or those of one who will share and heighten your 
 enjoyment, by partaking it in peace, and as one with you, 
 yet alone. 
 
 Passing the ravine, where the immortal Rip Van 
 Winkle played his game of nine-pins with the wizards 
 of that neighborhood, and quaffed huge draughts of those 
 bewildering flagons which made him sleep for years, I 
 flung myself impatiently from the " quarter-deck " of the 
 postilion whose place I had shared, and pushed gaily on, 
 determined to pause not until my weary feet stood on the 
 Platform. The road was smooth and good ; the air 
 refreshing and pure, beyond description. The lungs play 
 there without an effort ; it is a luxury to breathe. How 
 holy was the stillness ! Not a sound invaded the solemn 
 air; it was like inhaling the sanftity of the empyrean. 
 The forest tops soon began to stir as with a mighty wind. 
 I looked, and on both sides of the road there were trees 
 whose branches had been broken, as if by the wings of 
 some rushing tempest. It was the havoc of winter snows. 
 
 There is a wonderful deception in the approach to the 
 Mountain House, which, when discovered, will strike the 
 traveller with amazement. Af one point of the road, 
 where the mansion which is to terminate your pilgrimage 
 
212 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 heaves its white form in view (you have seen it from the 
 river for nearly half a day), it seems not farther than a 
 hundred rods, and hangs apparently on the verge of a 
 stupendous crag over your head, the road turns again, it 
 is out of sight, and the summits, near its locus in quo, are 
 nearly three miles off. The effeft is wonderful. The 
 mountain is growing upon you. 
 
 I continued to ascend, slowly, but with patient steps, 
 and with a flow of spirit which I cannot describe. Look- 
 ing occasionally to the east, 1 saw a line of such parti- 
 colored clouds (as then I deemed them), yellow, green 
 and purple, silver-laced and violet-bordered, that it me- 
 seemed I never viewed the like kaleidoscopic present- 
 ments. All this time, I wondered that I had seen no 
 land for many a weary mile. 
 
 Hill after hill, mere ridges of the mountain, was attain- 
 ed ; summit after summit surmounted ; and yet it seemed 
 to me that the house was as far off as ever. Finally it 
 appeared, and a-nigh ; to me the " earth's one sanftuary." 
 I reached it ; and stood on the Platform. 
 
 Good Reader ! expeft me not to describe the inde- 
 scribable. I feel now, while memory is busy in my brain, 
 calling up that vision to my mind, much as I did when I 
 leaned upon my staff before that omnipotent piflure, and 
 looked abroad upon its GoD-written magnitude. It was a 
 vast and changeful, a majestic, an interminable landscape ; 
 a fairy, grand, and delicately-colored scene, with rivers for 
 its lines of refledlions ; with highlands and the vales of 
 States for its shadowings, and far-off mountains for its 
 frame. Those parti-colored and varying clouds I fancied 
 I had seen as I ascended, were but portions of the scene. 
 All colors of the rainbow ; all softness of harvest-field, 
 and forest, and distant cities, and the towns that simply 
 
And the Region Around. 213 
 
 dotted the Hudson ; and far beyond where that noble 
 river, diminished to a brooklet, rolled its waters, there 
 opened mountain after mountain, vale after vale, State 
 after State, heaved against the horizon, to the north-east 
 and south, in impressive and sublime confusion ; while 
 still beyond, in undulating ridges, filled with all hues of 
 light and shade, coquetting with the cloud, rolled the 
 rock-ribbed and ancient frame of this dim diorama ! As 
 the sun went down, the houses and cities diminished to 
 dots ; the evening guns of the national anniversary came 
 booming up from the valley of the Hudson ; the bonfires 
 blazed along the peaks of distant mountains, and from the 
 suburbs of countless villages along the river ; while in the 
 dim twilight, 
 
 " From coast to coast, and irom town to town, 
 Vou could see all the white sails gleaming down." 
 
 The Steamboats, hastening to and fro, vomited their fires 
 upon the air, and the circuit of unnumbered miles sent 
 up its sights and sounds, from the region below, over 
 which the vast shadows of the mountains were stealing. 
 
 Just before the sun dropped behind the west, his slant 
 beams poured over the South Mountain and fell upon a 
 wide sea of feathery clouds, which were sweeping midway 
 along its form, obscuring the vale below. I sought an emi- 
 nence in the neighborhood, and with the sun at my back, 
 saw a giant form depifted in a misty halo on the clouds 
 below. He was identified, insubstantial but extensive 
 Shape ! I stretched forth my hand, and the giant speftre 
 waved his shadowy arm over the whole county of Dutchess, 
 through the misty atmosphere ; while just at his supernat- 
 ural coat-tail, a shower of light played upon the highlands, 
 verging toward West Point, on the river, which are to the 
 eye, from the Mountain House, level slips of shore, that 
 seem scarce so gross as knolls of the smallest size. 
 
214 ^'^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 In discoursing of the territorial wonderments in ques- 
 tion, which have been moulded by the hand of the Al- 
 mighty, I cannot suppose that you who read my reveries 
 will look with a compa6l, imaginative eye upon that which 
 has forced its huge radius upon my own extended vision. 
 I ask you, howbeit, to take my arm, and step forth with 
 me from the piazza of the Mountain House. It is night. 
 A few stars are peering from a dim azure field of western 
 sky ; the high-soaring breeze, the breath of heaven, makes 
 a stilly music in the neighboring pines ; the meek crest 
 of Dian rolls along the blue depths of ether, tinting with 
 silver lines the half dun, half fleecy clouds. 
 
 There is a bench near the verge of the Platform where, 
 when you sit at evening, the hollow-sounding air comes 
 up from the vast vale below, like the restless murmurs of 
 the ocean. 
 
 Listen to those voiceful currents of air, traversing the 
 vast profound ! What a mighty circumference do they 
 sweep ! Over how many towns, and dwellings, and 
 streams, and incommunicable woods ! Murmurs of the 
 dark sources and awakeners of sublime imagination swell 
 from afar. You have thoughts of eternity and power here 
 which shall haunt you evermore. 
 
 You can lie on your pillow at the Kaatskill House, and 
 see the god of day look upon you from behind the pinna- 
 cles of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, hun- 
 dreds of miles away. Noble prospeft ! As the great orb 
 heaves up in inefiable grandeur, he seems rising from 
 beneath you, and you fancy that you have attained an 
 elevation where may be seen the motion of the world. 
 No intervening land to limit the view, you seem suspend- 
 ed in mid-air, without one obstacle to check the eye. 
 The scene is indescribable. The chequered and inter- 
 minable vale, sprinkled with groves, and lakes, and towns, 
 
And the Region Around, 215 
 
 and streams ; the mountains afar off, swelling tumultu- 
 ously heavenward, like waves of the ocean, some incarna- 
 dined with radiance, others purpled in shade ; all these, 
 to use the lang^uage of an audlioneer's advertisement, 
 "are too tedious to mention, but may be seen on the 
 premises." I know of but one pidlure which will give the 
 reader an idea of this ethereal spot. It was the view which 
 the angel Michael was polite enough, one summer morning, 
 to point out to Adam, from the highest hill of Paradise. 
 
 " His eye might t^re command wherever stood • 
 
 City of old or modem fame, the seat 
 Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls 
 Of Cambalu, seat of CathaiaiQCan, 
 And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne. 
 To Paquin of Sinsean kings ; and thence 
 To Agra and Lahor of Great Mogul 
 Down to the golden Chersonese ; or where 
 The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since 
 In Hispahan ; or where the Russian Ksar 
 In Mosco : or the Sultan in Bizance, 
 Turchestan-bom ; nor could his eye not ken 
 The empire of Negus to his utmost port, 
 Ercoco ; and the less maritime kings, 
 Mombaza, and Quiloa, and Melind, 
 And Sofala thought Ophir, to the realm 
 Of Congo, and Angola farthest south ; 
 Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas mount. 
 The kingdoms of Almansor, Fez and Sus, 
 Morocco, and Algiers, and Tremisen ; 
 On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway 
 The world ; in spirit perhaps he also saw 
 Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, 
 (And Texas too, great Houston's seat — who knows?) 
 And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat 
 Of Atabalipa ; and yet unspoiled 
 Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons 
 Call £1 Dorado. 
 
 It looks to* be a perilous enterprise to descend the 
 Kaatskills. The wheels of the coach are shod with the 
 preparation of iron slippers, which are essential to a hold 
 
2i6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 up ; and as you bowl and grate along, with wilderness- 
 chasms and a brawling stream mayhap on one hand, and 
 horrid masses of stone seemingly ready to tumble upon 
 you on the other; the far plain stretching like the sea 
 beneath you, in the mists of the morning ; your emotions 
 are fidgetty. You are not afraid — not you, indeed ! 
 Catch you at such folly ! No ; but you wish most de- 
 voutly that you were some nine miles down, notwith- 
 standing, and are looking eagerly for that consummation. 
 
 We paused just long enough at tfie base of the moun- 
 tain to water the cattle and hear a bit of choice grammar 
 from the landlord, a burly, big individual, " careless of the 
 objeflive case," and studious of ease, in bags of tow- 
 cloth (trowsers by courtesy), and a roundabout of the 
 same material ; the knees of the unmentionables appa- 
 rently greened by kneeling humbly at the laftiferous 
 udder of his only cow, day by day. He addressed " the 
 gentleman that driv' us down " : 
 
 " Well, Josh, I seen them rackets ! " 
 
 " Wa'nt they almighty bright ? " was the inquisitive 
 reply. 
 
 This short colloquy had reference to a train of fire- 
 works which were set off the evening before at the 
 Mountain House ; long, snaky trails of light, flashing in 
 their zigzag course through the darkness. It was beauti- 
 ful to see those fiery sentences, written fitfully on the sky. 
 fading one by one, like some Hebrew character, some 
 Nebuchadnezzar scroll, in the dark profound, and show- 
 ing, as the rocket fell and faded, that beneath the lowest 
 deep to which it descended, there was one yet lower still, 
 to which it swept, " plumb-down, a shower of fire." 
 
 We presently rolled away, and were soon drawn up in 
 front of the Hudson, at the landing. 
 
And the Region Around. 217 
 
 "IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA, DURING 1833-35." 
 
 BY TYRONE POWER, ESQ. 
 
 A STAGE was in waiting at the landing-place, which 
 quickly took us to the town, where we took a carriage 
 dire6lly to the Mountain House, which we had marked 
 from the river as the morning sun lighted it up, looking 
 like a white dove-cot raised against the dark hill-side. 
 
 I will say nothing of our winding, rocky road, or of the 
 glimpses we now and then had of the nether world, which 
 "momentarily grew less,'' as, whilst halting for breath, 
 we curiously peeped through the leafy screen, flying 
 from the faded leaf .and drooping flower of scorching 
 summer, and finding ourselves once more surrounded 
 by all the lovely evidences of early spring. I walked 
 more than half way, and never felt less weary than when 
 I rested on the natural platform, which, thrust from the 
 hill-side, forms a stand whence may be worshipped one 
 of the most glorious prospefls ever given by the Creator 
 to man's admiration. 
 
 In the cool shade we stood here, and from this eyry 
 looked upon the silver line drawn through the vast rich 
 valley far below, doubtful of its being the broad Hudson, 
 upon whose bosom we had so lately floated in a huge ves- 
 sel crowded with passengers ; for this vessel we searched 
 in vain ; but, by the aid of a telescope, made out one of 
 the same kind, which appeared to flit along like some 
 fairy skiff on a pantomimic lake, made all radiant with gold 
 and pearL 
 
2i8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 How delightful were the sensations attendant upon a 
 first repose in this changed climate, enhanced as these 
 were by the remembrance of the broiling we had so re- 
 cently endured ! I never remember to have risen with 
 feelings more elastic, or in higher spirits, than I did after 
 my first night's rest upon the mountain. 
 
 »«*«♦*** 
 A ride of some three miles brought us as close as might 
 be to the spot (the Falls), and a walk of as many hundred 
 yards presented to view a scene as well suited for a witch's 
 festival as any spot in the old world. 
 
 With two others, I decided upon walking back, and 
 pleasant it is to walk through these quiet wild-wood paths, 
 where the chirps of the birds and the nestle of the leaves 
 alone break in upon the repose. These mountains are 
 everywhere thickly clothed with wood, save only the plat- 
 form where the house is built ; deer abound on the lower 
 ridges, and the bear yet finds ample cover here. A num- 
 ber of these animals are killed every season by an inde- 
 fatigable old Nimrod who lives in the valley beneath, and 
 who breeds some very fine dogs to this sport. 
 
 I did promise unto myself that during the coming Novem- 
 ber I would return up here, for the purpose of seeing Bruin 
 baited in his proper lair ; but regret to say my plan was 
 frustrated. It must be an exciting chase to rouse the lord 
 of this wild mountain forest on a sunny morning, with the 
 first hoar frost yet crisping the feathery pines ; and to hear 
 the deep-mouthed hounds giving tongue where an hundred 
 echoes wait to bay the fierce challenge back, and to hear 
 the sharp crack of the rifle rattle through the thin air. 
 
And the Region Around. 219 
 
 THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. 
 
 BY N. P. WILLIS. 
 
 At this elevation you may wear woollen and sleep under 
 blankets in midsummer ; and that is a pleasant tempera- 
 ture where much hard work is to be done in the way of 
 pleasure-hunting. No place so agreeable as Catskill, after 
 one has been parboiled in the city. The cool woods, the 
 small silver lakes, the falls, the mountain-tops, are all deli- 
 cious haunts for the idler-away of the hot months, and, to 
 the credit of our taste, it may be said they are fully im- 
 proved, — Catskill is a "resort." 
 
 From the Mountain House the busy and all-glorious 
 Hudson is seen winding half its silver length, — towns, 
 villas, and white spires, sparkling on the shores, and snowy 
 sails and gaily-painted steamers specking its bosom. It 
 is a constant diorama of the most lively beauty ; and the 
 traveller, as he looks down upon it, sighs to make it a 
 home. Yet a smaller and less-frequented stream would 
 best fulfil desires born of a sigh. There is either no seclu- 
 sion on the Hudson, or there is so much that the conve- 
 niences of life are difficult to obtain. Where the steamers 
 come to shore (twenty a day, with each from one to seven 
 hundred passengers) it is certainly far from secluded 
 enough. No place can be rural, in all the virtues of the 
 phrase, where a steamer will take the villager to the city 
 between noon and night, and bring him back between mid- 
 night and morning. There is a suburban look and charac- 
 ter about all the villages on the Hudson which seems out 
 of place among such scenery. They are suburbs, in fa6l ; 
 
220 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 steam has destroyed the distance between them and the 
 city. 
 
 The Mountain House on the Catskill, it should be re- 
 marked, is a luxurious hotel. How the proprietor can 
 have dragged up, and keeps dragging up, so many super- 
 fluities from the river level to the eagle's nest, excites your 
 wonder. It is the more strange, because in climbing a 
 mountain the feeling is natural that you leave such ener- 
 vating indulgences below. 
 
 The mountain-top is too near heaven. It should be a 
 monastery to lodge in so high ; a St. Gothard, or a Val- 
 lambrosa. But here you may choose between Hermitages, 
 " white " or " red " Burgundias, Madeiras, French dishes, 
 and French dances, as if you had descended upon Capua. 
 
And the Region Around. 221 
 
 CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE. 
 
 BY PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 July, 1843. 
 
 'Tis pleasant, for a while to leave the heated pavements 
 and the garbaged atmosphere of our ever-bustling, noisy 
 city ; to bid adieu to the continued rumbling and rattling 
 of aU the various vehicles that the worried horses are des- 
 tined to drag in merciless labor to and fro the city's length ; 
 to shun the charcoal vender's unearthly guttural ; the cries 
 of the newspaper urchins, more varied in tone than the 
 gamut's self; to flee from patients, clients, patrons, and all 
 the constant, never-varying avocations, that tend to harass 
 and perplex the lives of toiling citizens, and perch one's 
 self upon some" mountainous elevation, where nature's 
 calmness changes the current of our thoughts, and turns 
 them from the real and artificial miseries of humanity. 
 On such a spot we can enjoy an inward elevation, partak- 
 ing of the beauty and serenity of the scene, and indulge 
 the mind in instruftive refledlions upon the past, the pres- 
 ent, and the future. 
 
 It would seem that the great Creator of the universe 
 had built up this mighty eminence that man might know 
 His power, and, feeling his own insignificance, despise and 
 shun the vanities and hollow-heartedness of life. Here 
 the belief is taught that there is but one religion and one 
 great femily of mankind. Station yourself upon that pro- 
 jefting rock that hangs in such terrific altitude over the 
 immense space beneath, but attempt not to give utterance 
 to your feelings — slanguage could not express them. Have 
 you ever stood upon a vessel's deck, lashed to her for 
 
222 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 security, amid the howling tempest's rage, the winds driv- 
 ing her into the sea's deep chasms, and suspending her 
 on the lofty pinnacle of the waves, the lightning's flashes 
 brightening the surrounding horrors, and showing by its 
 vivid glares the peril of your situation ? Have you ever 
 known the mightiness of the tempest's angry mood at such 
 a moment, and felt how utterly inadequate is speech ? If 
 so, then stand upon this high-poised rock and learn that 
 it is not the awfully sublime alone that seals the lips, but 
 that nature in her calmest mood can subdue the mind to 
 silence. 
 
 The checkered scene below lies like the loveliest 
 meadow, in variegated patchwork. Hills have disap- 
 peaied. Here and there, apparently within a narrow lane, 
 a mite is seen. It is the vehicle of some sturdy farmer, 
 drawn by his well-fed span, measuring with rapid pace 
 the broad highway leading to the distant village, whose 
 diminished spires decorate the landscape. Observe that 
 quiet stream attenuated to a brook. One bound would 
 carry you to its opposite bank, were it what it seems, and 
 by that bound you would leap the noble Hudson. See 
 that tiny cloud — smaller than the puff just issuing from 
 your Havana — as it rises from the river's surface. That 
 speck beneath is speeding on its way with a velocity that 
 gladdens its living freight of anxious travellers, and yet 
 to the eye it moves not. Those far-off mountains, rising 
 from the horizon in varied obscure shapes and heights, 
 belong to other States. The fleeting clouds in graceful 
 movement pass beneath you, dragging their lengthened 
 shadows over the colored plain, until nature's curtain, 
 being drawn, shuts out the view. And now the whole 
 becomes one vast fiftitious sea, placing you in feeling 
 near the ocean's level, and relieving for a moment the 
 nervous throbs the dizzy height occasioned. Soon the 
 
And the Region Around. 223 
 
 clouds disperse, and separating in changing forms, the 
 quiet region underneath lies again before you in all its 
 beautiful and glorious sublimity. Such is nature's tab- 
 leau. Why was creation formed with features so im- 
 posing, but for man's great benefit, that he might learn 
 the power and majesty of the Omnipotent ! 
 
 Come, then, ye multitudes of uneducated mortals, and 
 from this great book store your minds with deep reflec- 
 tions, leading to wisdom and to happiness. 
 
224 T^f^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 FROM « RETROSPECT OF WESTERN TRAVEL." 
 
 BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 However widely European travellers have differed 
 about other things in America, all seem to agree in 
 their love of the Hudson. The pens of all tourists 
 dwell on its scenery, and their afFeftions linger about it 
 like the magic hghts which seem .to have this river in 
 their peculiar charge. Yet very few travellers have seen 
 its noblest wonder. I may be singular ; but I own that I 
 was more moved by what I saw from the Mountain House 
 than by Niagara itself 
 
 What is this Mountain House ? this Pine Orchard 
 House ? many will ask ; for its name is not to be found 
 in most books of American travels. " What is that white 
 speck ? " I myself asked, when staying at Tivoli, on the 
 east bank of the Hudson, opposite to the Catskills, whose 
 shadowy surface was perpetually tempting the eye. That 
 white speck, visible to most eyes only when bright sun- 
 shine was upon it, was the Mountain House ; a hotel 
 built for the accommodation of hardy travellers who may 
 desire to obtain that complete view of the valley of the 
 Hudson which can be had nowhere else. I think I had 
 rather have missed the Hawk's Nest, the Prairies, the 
 Mississippi, and even Niagara, than this. 
 
 The mountain laurel conveyed by association the first 
 impression of coolness. Sheep were browsing among the 
 shrubs, apparently enjoying the shelter of the covert. 
 We scrambled through deep shade for three or four 
 miles, heavy showers passing over us, and gusts of wind 
 
And the Region Around. 225 
 
 bowing the tree-tops, and sending a shiver through us, 
 partly from the sudden chillness, and partly from expefta- 
 tion and awe of the breezy solitude. 
 
 After another level reach of road, and another scram- 
 bling ascent, I saw something on the rocky platform 
 above our heads, like (to compare great things with small) 
 an illumined fairy palace perched among the clouds in 
 opera scenery ; a large building, whose numerous window 
 lights marked out its figure from amid the thunder-clouds 
 and black twilight which overshadowed it. It was now 
 half-past eight o'clock, and a stormy evening. Every- 
 thing was chill, and we were glad of lights and tea in the 
 first place. 
 
 After tea I went out upon the platform in front of the 
 house, having been warned not to go too near the edge, 
 so as to fall an unmeasured depth into the forest below. 
 I sat upon the edge, as a security against stepping over 
 unawares. The stars were bright overhead, and had con- 
 quered half the sky, giving promise of what we ardentlj' 
 desired, a fine morrow. Over the other half the mass of 
 thunder-clouds was, I supposed, heaped together, for I 
 could at first discern nothing of the campaign which I 
 knew must be stretched below. Suddenly and from that 
 moment incessantly, gushes of red lightning poured out 
 from the cloudy canopy, revealing not merely the horizon, 
 but the course of the river in all its windings through the 
 valley. This thread of river, thus illuminated, looked like 
 a flash of lightning caught by some strong hand and laid 
 along in the valley. All the principal features of the 
 landscape might, no doubt, have been discerned by this 
 sulphurous light ; but my whole attention was absorbed 
 by the river, which seemed to come out of the darkness 
 like an apparition at the summons of my impatient will. 
 It could be borne only for a short time ; this dazzling, 
 15 
 
226 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 bewildering alternation of glare and blackness, of vast 
 reality and nothingness. I was soon glad to draw back 
 from the precipice and seek the candle-light within. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. I shall never forget, if I 
 live to a hundred, how the world lay at my feet one Sun- 
 day morning. I rose very early and looked abroad from 
 my window, two stories above the platform. A dense fog, 
 exaftly level with my eyes, as it appeared, roofed in the 
 whole plain of the earth ; a dusky firmament, in which the 
 stars had hidden themselves for the day. Such is the 
 account which an antediluvian spe£lator would probably 
 have given of it. This solid firmament had spaces in it, 
 however, through which gushes of sunlight were poured, 
 lighting up the spires of white churches, and clusters of 
 farm buildings, too small to be otherwise distinguished ; 
 and especially the river, with its sloops floating like motes 
 in the sunbeam. The firmament rose and melted, or 
 parted off into the likeness of snowy sky-mountains, and 
 left the cool Sabbath to brood brightly over the land. 
 What human interest san6lifies a bird's-eye view ! I sup- 
 pose this is its peculiar charm, for its charm is found to 
 deepen in proportion to the growth of mind. To an 
 infant, a campaign of a hundred miles is not so much as a 
 yard square of gay carpet. To the rustic it is less be- 
 witching than a paddock with two cows. To the philoso- 
 pher, what is it not ? As he casts his eye over its glitter- 
 ing towns, its scattered hamlets, its secluded homes, its 
 mountain ranges, church spires and untrodden forests, it 
 is a picture of life ; an epitome of the human universe ; 
 the complete volume of moral philosophy, for which he 
 has sought in vain in all libraries. On the left horizon are 
 the Green Mountains of Vermont, and at the right ex- 
 tremity sparkles the Atiantic. Beneath lies the forest, 
 where the deer are hiding and the birds rejoicing in song. 
 
And the Region Around. 227 
 
 Beyond the river he sees spread the rich plains of Con- 
 nefticut ; there, where a blue expanse lies beyond the 
 triple range of hills, are the churches of religious Massa- 
 chusetts sending up their Sabbath psalms : praise which 
 he is too high to hear, while God is not. The fields and 
 waters seem to him to-day no more truly property than 
 the skies which shine down upon them ; and to think how 
 some below are busying their thoughts this Sabbath day 
 about how they shall hedge in another field, or multiply 
 their flocks on yonder meadows, gives him a taste of the 
 same pity which Jesus felt in his solitude when his fol- 
 lowers were contending about which should be the great- 
 est. It seems strange to him how that man should call 
 anything his but the power which is in him, and which 
 can create somewhat more vast and beautiful than all that 
 this horizon incloses. Here he gains the convldlion, to be 
 never again shaken, that all that is real is ideal ; that the 
 joys and sorrows of men do not spring up out of the 
 ground or fly abroad on the wings of the wind, or come 
 showered down from the sky ; that good cannot be hedged 
 in, nor evil barred out ; even that light does not reach the 
 spirit through the eye alone, nor wisdom through the 
 medium of sound or silence only. He becomes of one 
 mind with the spiritual Berkeley, that the face of nature 
 itself, the very pifture of woods, and streams, and mead- 
 ows, is a hieroglyphic writing in the spirit itself, of which 
 the retina is no interpreter. The proof is just below him 
 (at least it came under my eye), in the lady (not American) 
 who, after glancing over the landscape, brings her chair 
 into the piazza, and, turning her back to the campaign and 
 her face to the wooden walls of the hotel, begins the 
 study, this Sunday morning, of her lapful of newspapers. 
 What a sermon is thus preached to him at this moment 
 from a very hackneyed text ! To him that hath much — 
 
228 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 that hath the eye, and ear, and wealth of the spirit, shall 
 more be given ; even a replenishing of this spiritual life 
 from that which to others is formless and dumb ; while 
 from him that hath little, who trusts in that which lies 
 about him rather than in that which lies within him, shall 
 be taken away, by natural decline, the power of perceiv- 
 ing and enjoying what is within his own domain. To him 
 who is already enriched with large divine and human reve- 
 lations, this scene is, for all its stillness, musical with 
 divine and human speech ; while one who has been deaf- 
 ened by the din of worldly affairs can hear nothing in this 
 mountain solitude. 
 
 The march of the day over the valley was glorious, and 
 I was grieved to have to leave my window for an expedi- 
 tion a few miles off. However, the expedition was a good 
 preparation for the return to my window. The little 
 nooks of the road, crowded with bilberries, cherries, and 
 alpine plants, and the quiet tarn, studded with golden 
 water-lilies, were a wholesome contrast to the grandeur 
 of what we had left behind us. 
 
 On returning, we found dinner awaiting us, and also a 
 party of friends out of Massachusetts, with whom we 
 passed the afternoon, climbing higher and higher among 
 the pines, ferns, and blue berries of the mountain, to get 
 wider and wider views. They told me that I saw Albany, 
 but I was by no means sure of it. This large city lay in 
 the landscape like an ant-hill in a meadow. Long before 
 sunset I was at my window again, watching the gradual 
 lengthening of the shadows and purpling of the landscape. 
 It was more beautiful than the sunrise of this morning, 
 and less so than that of the morrow. Of this last I shall 
 give no description, for I would not weary others with 
 what is most sacred to me. Suffice it that it gave me a 
 vivid idea of the process of creation, from the moment 
 
And the Region Around. 229 
 
 when all was without form and void, to that when light 
 was commanded, and there was light. 
 
 When we were departing, a foreign tourist was heard 
 to complain of the high charges ! High charges ! As if 
 we were to be supplied for nothing on a perch where the 
 wonder is if any but the young ravens get fed ! When I 
 considered what a drawback it is in visiting mountain- 
 tops that one is driven down again almost immediately 
 by one's bodily wants, I was ready to thank the people 
 devoutly for harboring us on any terms, so that we might 
 think out our thoughts, and compose our emotions, and 
 take our fill of that portion of bur universal and eternal 
 inheritance. 
 
230 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 THE FOURTH AT PINE ORCHARD. 
 
 BY MRS. ELLETT. 
 
 " Have you been at the Catskill Mountain House ? " 
 asked a friend, incidentally ; " our party is going to-mor- 
 row" — and the important question was decided. The 
 morning of the third we set off in the Empire steamer. 
 After dinner we landed at Catskill, at three in the after- 
 noon. Stages were ready to receive the passengers, and 
 bestowing ourselves therein, we turned from the village, 
 crossed a fine wide stream called the Catskill, and entered 
 upon a country enchanting enough to fill with rapture one 
 long unaccustomed to such varieties of scenery. Here 
 were rich valleys sprinkled with cottages and watered by 
 winding streams, whose course could be traced far off by 
 the luxuriance of the shrubbery on their banks ; there 
 were cultivated fields, and green meadows, and impervious 
 woods ; and land now gently undulating, now broken into 
 steep ascents and startling declivities. Occasionally the 
 road wound along a precipice, just steep and high enough 
 to be perilous and pleasant. The vivid green of the foliage 
 everywhere, and the verdure of the meadows, was most 
 refreshing to an eye accustomed of late to the barren 
 wastes of southern pine-lands. Here and there you pass 
 a pifturesque dell ; one of them is filled with the sound 
 of a distant waterfall, doubtless worth a pilgrimage to see ; 
 and frequently you are arrested by the tiny voice of some 
 adventurous rill, flinging itself impetuously down the hill- 
 side, and hastening to its burial in the valley's depths. 
 The range of mountains now rises high and misty before 
 
And the Region Around. 231 
 
 you ; anon you skirt a gloomy and fathomless valley, per- 
 feftly dark with verdure. This is the Sleepy Hollow, com- 
 memorated by Irving. I looked to see a Rip Van Winkle 
 emerge from its shades. It is said that one of the oldest 
 settlers in the region aftually remembers a strange person 
 of that name ; doubtless an inveterate sleeper, whose 
 habits suggested a legend. Rolling on with the merciless 
 velocity of stage-coaches, we came to the spot where the 
 steep ascent commences ; and here I was fain, with many 
 others, to alight and walk, dreading that in the climbing 
 process No. i might chance to fall back on No. 2, No. 2 
 on No. 3, and so on. However, none but an habitual cow- 
 ard like myself need fear such a catastrophe, as the vehi- 
 cles are strongly built, and provided each with a pointed 
 bar of iron that would effeftually prevent any retrograde 
 motion. The winding road, closely embowered with foliage, 
 is here pi(5luresque in the extreme. Almost every turn 
 brings some new beauty to view, and the woods are white 
 with the blossoms of the mountain laurel, of which our 
 party bore away numerous trophies. The precipice on the 
 right overhangs the road, but the rocks are concealed by 
 a bright mantle of green. The mountain towers into still 
 grander elevatidh as you ascend it, and is fast darkening 
 with the shadows of evening, though the plain still lies in 
 sunshine. Suddenly a turn places you in sight of the 
 house, which is the termination of your journey. It is 
 seen direftly overhead, perched on the very brink of the 
 frowning precipice, like the eagle's or the lammergeyer's 
 nest, or some feudal castle on its foe-defying height. This, 
 indeed, it would resemble, were it of gray stone, instead 
 of being built of wood and painted white. Nevertheless, 
 its snowy whiteness contrasts perhaps the more beauti- 
 fully with the green woods from the bosom of which it 
 seems to rise, and with the mountainous background. 
 
232 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 The road by which that elevation is gained is very tor- 
 tuous, so that a considerable space must be passed over 
 before you come to the plateau on which the house stands. 
 This plain lies in an amphitheatre between two mountains. 
 It is called Pine Orchard, because it was formerly covered 
 with a growth of small pines, which are now removed, 
 having been sacrificed to enhance the beauty of the spot, 
 and encourage the growth of clover and grass, that fills 
 the open space between the beds of solid rock. The 
 " Mountain House " is a large and irregular building, hav- 
 ing been built in different parts at different times. The 
 more recent portion was erefted in 1824. It is spacious 
 enough to accommodate a very large number of guests, 
 having double and triple rows of goodly dormitories, all 
 of a better size, and more comfortably furnished, than the 
 sleeping-rooms usually appropriated to travelers at the 
 fashionable watering-places. The drawing-rooms are spa- 
 cious ; the principal one consisting of three large saloons 
 opening into each other, or rather forming one. The 
 dining-room, is large enongh for a feudal banqueting hall, 
 its effeft being increased by a range of pillars for the whole 
 length down the centre ; and these pillars are wreathed 
 with evergreens, while between the nuAerous windows 
 stand hemlock or cedar trees during the season, quite in 
 baronial taste. As far as I know, this style of embellish- 
 ment is unique ; it is certainly very pifturesque. 
 
 The evening shadows now stretch over the entire plain, 
 and the quiet of the scene, after the day's bustle, invites 
 to sweet repose, which the guests are fain to seek, after 
 the good appetites created by the drive of twelve miles, 
 and the fresh mountain air, have been satisfied by the 
 excellent supper provided by Mr. Beach, the enterprising 
 landlord. Here is an almost wasteful profusion of straw- 
 berries, and the other fruits of the season, freshly picked 
 
And the Region Around. 233 
 
 by the mountaineers, with cream and butter that does 
 ample justice to the rich pasturage of this region. 
 
 In the morning, go to the front, and what a scene pre- 
 sents itself ! The "House" stands on the table rock, a 
 few yards from the sheer verge — an elevation of eighteen 
 hundred feet above the apparent plain, and twenty-seven 
 hundred above the level of the river. There is a narrow 
 strip of green just in front, under the long and capacious 
 piazza, beautifully ornamented with young fir and cedar 
 trees, and a variety of shrubs. Then comes a strip of 
 bare rock, overlooking the awful abyss. 
 
 A sea of woods is at your feet, but so far below, that 
 the large hills seem but slight heavings of the green bil- 
 lowy mass ; before you lies a vast landscape, stretching 
 far as the eye can take in the pifture ; a map of earth with 
 its fields, its meadows, its forests, and its villages and 
 cities scattered in the distance ; its streams and lakes 
 diminished, like the dwellings of man, into insignificance. 
 Through the midst winds the sweeping river, the mighty 
 Hudson, lessened to a rill ; or it might be likened to a 
 riband laid over a ground of green. Still further 00 are 
 the swelling uplands, and then far along the h6rizon, 
 mountains piled on mountains, melting into the distance, 
 rising range above range, till the last and loftiest fades 
 into the blue of the sky. ■ Over this magnificent panorama 
 the morning sun pours a misty radiance, half veiling, yet 
 adding to its beauty, and tinting the Hudson with silver. 
 Here and there the bright river is dotted with sails, and 
 sometimes a steamboat could be seen winding its ap- 
 parently slow way along. The clouds that fling their fit- 
 ful shadows over the country below are on a level with us 
 dwellers of the air ; the golden patches that occupy the 
 higher regions of atmosphere seem but a few feet above 
 us, and we beyond their sphere, standing in mid-air, look- 
 
234 1^^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ing down on so unrivalled a piflure, to thank Heaven for 
 the glory and beauty of earth — even the birds seldom soar 
 higher than our feet ; the resting-place of the songster, 
 whose flight cau no longer be traced from the plain, is 
 still far below us. We seem like the bell immortalized by 
 Schiller : — 
 
 " In Heaven's pavilion hung on high. 
 The neighbors of the rolling thunder, 
 The hmits of the star-world nigh." 
 
 After contemplating this gorgeous scene, this still-life 
 of the busy world, till lost in admiration, and listening to 
 the ceaseless but faint roar sent up from the forest, like 
 the chime of the eternal ocean, the next thing you will do 
 will be to take a carriage to the Catskill Falls, distant 
 about three miles. The road is rough, wild and rocky, 
 but beautifully pifturesque. The mountains forming the 
 back-ground of this scene are half-covered with shadows 
 from the clouds, which present the appearance of gorges 
 on their sides, and are continually changing their form, 
 and shifting as the breezes blow. They are distinguished 
 by various names, such as Round Top, Indian's Head, 
 &c. On the road, which is winding, and embowered by 
 close woods, you cross a small mountain stream that soon 
 expands into a perfe6l gem of a lake, quite embosomed 
 in the circling hills, covered with a growth of straight, 
 giant-like pines, rising range above range to the summits, 
 where the tallest stand in relief against the sky. At a 
 distance of more than a quarter of a mile from the Falls, 
 you alight from the carriages, and walk along the romantic 
 road, admiring at every step, or stopping to gather the 
 abundant variety of wild flowers. The beauty of this 
 woodland path baffles all description. It condudts to the 
 Pavilion, situated at the top of the fall, and direftly over- 
 
And the Region Around. 235 
 
 hanging the abyss. On the end of the platform you are 
 close upon the water, hastening to precipitate itself over 
 the rock on which you stand, and tumbling into the wild- 
 est ravine ever poet dreamed of. The height of this fall 
 is one hundred and eighty feet ; a second just below is 
 eighty feet, but from the height it seems a mere step the 
 playful stream is taking, to dash itself in rapids a little 
 further on, and then be lost to sight in the thick foliage 
 overgrowing the bottom of the gorge. Three mountains 
 here interseft each other ; and the overlapping of their 
 sides conceals the bed of the stream, so buried that a sea 
 of woods alone is visible. You descend by a path in the 
 woods, and by staircases fixed in the " precipitous, black, 
 jagged rocks." The view from different points of the 
 ravine, and the perpendicular wall forming its sides, is 
 both splendid and sublime. When about half-way from 
 the bottom of the first fall, the path turns aside, and 
 enters a spacious cavern, wholly behind the falling sheet. 
 The sides and roof are of solid gray rock, and the roof 
 projefls seventy feet, though in some places it is so low 
 that it cannot be passed under without stooping. The 
 path is consequently sheltered, though but a foot in width 
 — a mere shelf on the verge of a precipice, so narrow as 
 to be quite invisible to those without. It is somewhat 
 " on the plan " of that to Termination Rock behind the 
 falling ocean at Niagara, and really gives an idea of that 
 stupendous place, barring the thunders and the world of 
 waters. A fine view is here obtained of the falling sheet, 
 which appears much larger and broader ; while the sides 
 of the ravine, and the dense forest seen through the 
 showery curtain, present a scene beautiful beyond de- 
 scription. Having emerged on the other side, you de- 
 scend quite to the bottom, and cross the chafed stream by 
 stepping on fragments of rock. Here is a noble view ; 
 
236 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 and the quantity of water is suddenly increased by open- 
 ing the dam above, so that its roar fills the gorge. Again 
 you descend by the steep path, and a succession of stair- 
 cases, fifty feet below the foot of fall second, and cross 
 near a small but furious rapid. From the large flat rock 
 here you obtain the finest view of all. It is three hundred 
 and ten feet below the Pavilion. The whole castellated 
 amphitheatre is before you ; and a succession of falls, 
 with a wall of foliage and rocks on either side, ascending 
 far upward, so as to shut out all but a narrow strip of blue 
 sky, seen overhead, and just above the top of fall first. 
 Over this opening golden patches of clouds are sailing, 
 and seem almost to rest upon it. Once more the quantity 
 of water is increased ; the falls swell to larger volume, and 
 the clouds of sunny spray rise and fill the amphitheatre ; 
 then melt away as before, while the fall assumes its former 
 thread-like appearance. The people walking within the 
 cavern, just visible through the spray, look spedlral 
 enough, especially as they seem to have some secret of 
 their own for clinging to the rocky wall, no path being 
 apparent. It would require but little stretch of imagina- 
 tion to suppose them children of the mist, or genii of the 
 waterfall, particularly that light, fragile figure, whose float- 
 ing white robe contrasts so wildly with the dark mass 
 behind her. What a scene for deeds of romance and 
 heroism ! I warrant me many a declaration has been 
 made in that thrilling spot ; and would advise any fair 
 lady who would bring a hesitating lover to confession, to 
 lead him hither for the inspiration he needs. Some in- 
 stances of success on both sides, I could mention ; and 
 could relate one or two romantic tales, but they must be 
 postponed to another occasion. Below, for a little way, 
 the eye can follow the stream ; and our guide told us that 
 a quarter of a mile further were other small falls. The 
 
And the Region Around. 237 
 
 path is wild and rough along the stream, but would doubt- 
 less well reward the exploration. You ascend by the 
 same way, winding through the cavern to the Pavilion, 
 where the American flag, and the reports of a gun or two 
 reverberating among the mountains, somewhat startlingly 
 reminded us of the Fourth ; not so keenly, however, as to 
 destroy the enchantment of this " spirit-stirring nook." 
 The sound of a bugle in the distant forest restored the 
 poetry of the scene at once, notwithstanding the presence 
 of numbers of country people in their holiday attire — 
 shirt-sleeves — the costume of the American peasantry. 
 To add a little incident in charafter, one of our party 
 hooked up with an umbrella from the bushes a manu- 
 script, illustrating the beauties of the scene in very blank 
 verse. 
 
 Returning by the carriages over the same road, the 
 gorgeous still-life view from the table-rock awaited us ; 
 the ocean landscape ; the distant river silvered by the 
 sunshine ; the mountains melting into ether. 
 
 Visitors at Catskill mountain do not usually give them- 
 selves time to see even what they do see to the best 
 advantage. Many of them remain but a single day, pay- 
 ing only a hurried visit to the falls, and neglefting many 
 other scenes almost equal in interest. There are numer- 
 ous lovely walks in the vicinity, chief among which are 
 those upon the South and North mountain ; and the 
 beautiful lake in the immediate neighborhood of the 
 House is said to abound in fish, affording amusement to 
 those fond of the sport, with boats for rowing or sailing- 
 parties. There is said also to be an ice-glen some miles 
 distant, into the depths of which the sun never penetrates, 
 and where ice may be found deposited by all the winters 
 since the creation. 
 
 The walk upon Nortli mountain I found particularly 
 
238 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 interesting. For some distance you follow the winding 
 road, through woods certainly richer than ever grew on 
 such a height before, with a great deal of impervious un- 
 derwood, embellished with wild flowers. The moss grows 
 here in such abundance as everywhere to attraft atten- 
 tion. At the falls it partially covers the rock beside the 
 cavern, and is of the most vivid green. Near the foot of 
 the lake is a mass of rock, twelve or fifteen feet in height, 
 perfeftly covered with gray lichen. The boulders on the 
 mountain are almost hidden by the ancient-looking 
 shroud ; and the various growths might form a study for 
 the naturalist. Leaving the road for the mountain path, 
 you begin the ascent, and skirt the frowning precipice, 
 where a single false step would be destruftion. Far, far 
 below is the same extensive, billowy verdure — the primi- 
 tive forest. Now you climb a rude staircase of piled 
 stones, then wind through the deep woods, where wander- 
 ers would infallibly be lost without a guide, and where 
 the guide himself finds it hard to thread the tangled maze. 
 Several points where a fine view may be seen claim your 
 attention, as now and then you come forth on the rocky 
 verge ; but the cry is still " onward," and, hke all others 
 of the human race who never weary of pursuing a prom- 
 ised good, you persevere tiU the aftual summit, by toil 
 and trouble, is reached at last. And splendid is the re- 
 ward ! So vast is the height on which you stand, that 
 the " Mountain House," with its lakes, itself appears upon 
 a plain. In clear weather the view is almost boundless, 
 including Albany on one hand, the Highlands on the 
 other ; but just then I witnessed a still grander phenom- 
 enon, reaUzing the beauty of HaUeck's lines descriptive 
 of Weehawken : 
 
 " Qouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue 
 Of summer's sky in beauty bending o*er him." 
 
And the Region Around. 239 
 
 The clouds were not exaftly slumbering, but rolling in 
 heavy masses below us, shrouding completely the more 
 distant portions of the landscape, while a thick mist ren- 
 dered indistinft the scene immediately beneath. I can- 
 not say we were altogether in the enjoyment of " the clear 
 blue of summer's sky," for the top of the mountain just 
 behind us was enveloped in clouds, and only here and 
 there narrow strips of the sky could be discerned ; but we 
 were " mickle better aif" than the seeming plain, on 
 which a fierce rain was evidently pouring. Ere long, 
 however, and while storm and darkness yet brooded on 
 the regions below, the mists rolled away from the summit 
 and melted at the presence of the sun, the heavens looked 
 forth blue and clear as ever, and the rain-drops on the 
 trees glanced in the pure sunshine. Then the vapory 
 veil beneath us was rent and rolled back ; part of the 
 landscape rejoiced once more in the living light ! The 
 sun pierced the dark curtain beyond ; it was lifted, and 
 gradually withdrawn ; the glancing river and the distant 
 mountains came into bright view once more ; and ere 
 long no trace of the storm could be found, save in the 
 dense masses of cloud that mingled with the mountains 
 on the farthest verge of the horizon. 
 
 I would not have missed this speftacle, new and sur- 
 passingly glorious as it was, for the world. But one even 
 more striking can be seen, I am told, during a sudden 
 thunder-shower. The clouds' then fill the lower regions 
 of the atmosphere, and roll dense and dark beneath, like 
 ocean-waves tossed by the blast ; the lightning leaps from 
 space to space, and the thunder peals wildly around, while 
 " the dweller in air " sees naught above him but a blue sun- 
 bright sky. The clearing up of a storm seen under these cir- 
 cumstances must be sublime beyond imagination, and well 
 worth a journey to the Mountain House expressly to see. 
 
240 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Some of our party regretted that the house had not 
 been built on the table-rock of North mountain ; but the 
 difficulty of access, and the impossibility of coming up 
 with stages, would, in such a case, have limited the num- 
 ber of visitors to a few. The present location is the most 
 eligible in every respeft. 
 
 After the descent our guide diredled us to a rocky foot- 
 path, instead of the winding road to the house. It 
 required some toil and climbing, but well repaid the exer- 
 tion. 
 
 The ascent to the South mountain is equally beautiful. 
 The path leads from the plateau to the left up the steep 
 acclivity, through a wild forest, less tangled, however, 
 than the other, where huge boulders, gray with moss, are 
 piled fantastically around ; some poised on a single edge, 
 and looking as if the slightest force would precipitate 
 them downward to crush the woods in their path ; some 
 without apparent foundation, resting on points unseen, 
 and presenting shallow but extensive caverns, the prob- 
 able abode of reptiles, and green with rank moisture. 
 Trees grow on their sides and in the clefts, and you won- 
 der whence their nourishment is derived ; they seem, in 
 truth, to have a partiality for the rugged soil, and fre- 
 quently send their roots far down the rock to seek the 
 humid earth. The fir, the cedar, and silver pine, so much 
 more beautiful than the southern pine, abound here, with 
 a vast variety of deciduous trees. The innumerable crev- 
 ices are filled with green moss. The ascent becomes 
 yet more steep, and presently you enter a narrow rift, 
 from which the party, one by one, emerge above, and 
 seem as if ascending out of the earth. The shadow of 
 the overhanging cliffs renders this spot ever cool and 
 fresh, even in the hottest part of the summer-day. On 
 the summit are three points usually visited by travelers, 
 
And the Region Around. 241 
 
 from which a gorgeous view may be obtained. On one 
 the huge fragment of rock is, to all appearance, entirely 
 separated from the mountain ; it is really, however, fast 
 united below, or it would, long ere this, have plunged from 
 its place into the abyss. I must not forget to mention 
 that there is a plateau on both these mountains, covered 
 with short pines, which has obtained the name of Pine 
 Orchard. The pioneer who erefted the first building 
 on the mountain pointed out to us the spot where he 
 slept, wrapt in his greatcoat, under a rocky shelter, the 
 first night he passed in this neighborhood. 
 
 From the third and highest point the view is the best. 
 Here, besides the dark ridge of forest and the ocean 
 landscape, a new range of mountains can be discerned far 
 southward, and several towns on the Hudson. 
 
 There is a beautiful drive in the vicinity, enjoyed by 
 few among the visitors to the Mountain House, which, 
 however, should be neglefted by none. It is on what is 
 called the Clove road, leading through a cleft in the moun- 
 tain southward. Descending by the traveled road three 
 or four miles, passing the weird valley of Sleepy Hollow, 
 where, in a dreamy nook, under the towering mountains, 
 you will find the piflure of old Rip at his waking, hung 
 up as a sign to a rude-looking house of refreshment ; and 
 pursuing the road a little beyond the toll-gate, you turn 
 aside to the right and foUow the road along the foot of the 
 precipice on which the house stands. Ere long you turn 
 again to the right, and presently find yourself in a moun- 
 tain defile, where surprise and deUght at the wondrous 
 scene accompany you on every step onward. The moun- 
 tains rise abruptly on either side almost to the clouds ; 
 the primeval forest is around you ; and the depth of the 
 gorge, which is sometimes narrow and cavernous, is 
 filled by a brawling mountain stream, the same Cauters- 
 16 
 
242 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 kill that takes the leap down the falls above. For two 
 or three miles this scene of beauty and grandeur, varying 
 every moment, meets your eye ; now the stream runs 
 over its bed of rocks, now dashes wildly in rapids, now 
 runs smoothly for a space ; while the road winds on its 
 verge, sometimes far above it, sometimes descending 
 nearly to its level. After passing through the cleft you 
 ascend the mountain and return to the house, having 
 made a circuit of twelve miles. 
 
 To those who have leisure for enjo)rment of country air 
 and scenery, and for exploring the wild and numerous 
 beauties of this region, I would recommend a residence 
 of weeks at Pine Orchard. The mountain is fresh and 
 invigorating, and always cool in the sultriest season. The 
 rapid succession of visitors, presenting new faces every 
 day, is rather an objeftion to those who have a taste for 
 the society of watering-places ; but I see no reason why the 
 Catskill Mountain House should not, when its resources 
 are better known, be a place of fashionable resort, during 
 all the hot season, for summer travelers. 
 
 E. F. E. 
 
And the Region Around. 243 
 
 A SKETCH BY REV. DR. MURDOCK. 
 
 We arrived at " the House " in a most unfavorable time for 
 seeing anything, and were strongly tempted to return imme- 
 diately. It was just that kind of sky which below gives the 
 " blues." The dreary, dense mist that enveloped the en- 
 tire range, was mournful ; and, as the wind blew from the 
 north-east, there was no prospect of the sky being cleared 
 till the Newfoundland banks had exchanged these vapory 
 sheets for a robe of sunshine. The cloud was as damp 
 as clouds are an3rwhere that I have known. I have heard 
 of Laplatid fogs, and had felt Scotch mists, but this was 
 equal to any of these for its penetrating quahty. Starch 
 and gum shrank into mournful, skin-like flaccidity ; and 
 to use the inelegant expression of a fellow-visitor, whose 
 sobriquet was " Tom," " Kate's ringlets were no more like 
 seraphs' locks than Old Bay's tail." 
 
 It was in vain that we fled from the outside of the house 
 to the inside, as the cloud went with the air, and a perfeft 
 i/acuum was impossible. Chairs, tables, mantel-pieces, 
 stood in dewy beads ; and even the beds had that sticky 
 touch you feel at the " Ocean House " after two days 
 stormy weather. Though there was a constant fire kept 
 up in the parlor, it did not to us, the " new arrived," exhi- 
 bit that bliss which a kindled hearth presents to the youth- 
 ful imagination anticipating the marriage-day. 
 
 A lugubrious-looking man here stepped up, and with 
 the most rueful-looking countenance declared, that " This 
 was awful ! I came here," said he, " a week ago, all the 
 way from Cape Cod, for the sole objeft of getting a look, 
 
244 ^'^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and here I have seen nothing ; and to be laughed at in the 
 bargain." "I shall not go back," said "Tom," "without 
 my story. I have seen something worth telling." '• And 
 pray what shall you tell them that you saw .' " said the sad 
 man, " except across the dinner-table ; and scarcely that 
 far, if I may guess from your good judgment on cookery." 
 " Why," said " Tom," with perfedt nonchalance, " I shall 
 tell them I have seen the greatest fog that I have ever seen 
 in my life ! " " And, my dear sir," said the gentleman 
 with the book, "you can now preach from that text, 'All 
 baptized in the cloud.' " " Or that other one," said the 
 lady, " being compassed about with so great a cloud of 
 witnesses." 
 
 Now, thought I, there may be more in this darkness 
 than was dreamed of in my first philosophy. I will remain, 
 and perhaps I may catch some of the inspiration from this 
 happy family. But I was disturbed in my cogitations by 
 a buzz among the guests near the door, and all I could 
 hear was that the house was "going past on the outside." 
 A waiter was quieting an old lady by telling her that all 
 was quite firm at the foundations, for it was built on a rock. 
 
 We were all on the piazza in a few moments, and there, 
 sure enough, was the perfeft image of the vast building, 
 plainly impressed upon a thicker cloud than the general 
 envelope that had covered us. It was a great mass of 
 vapor, moving from north to south, direflly in front, and 
 only about two hundred feet from us, which reflefted the 
 light of the sun, now beginning to appear in the west, from 
 its bosom, like a mirror, in which the noble Corinthian 
 pillars, which form the front of the building, were expand- 
 ed like some palace built by the Titans for the entertain- 
 ment of their antediluvian guests. I had read of Catherine 
 of Russia's famous palace of ice, all glittering with the 
 gorgeousness that now beautifies the Kremlin ; and how 
 
And the Region Around. 245 
 
 frequently. that is produced, as emblematic of human glory ; 
 but here was something that more than recalled my early 
 impressions of Aladdin's lamp, or of the magician's wand. 
 
 The visionary illusion was moving with the cloud, and 
 ere long we saw one pillar disappear, then another. We, 
 ourselves, who were expanded to Brobdignags in size, saw 
 the gulf into which we were to enter and be lost. I almost 
 shivered when my turn came, but there was no eluding my 
 fate ; one side of my face was veiled, and in a few moments 
 the whole had passed like a dream. An instant before, 
 and we were the inhabitants of a " gorgeous palace," but it 
 was the " baseless fabric of a vision," and now there was 
 left " not a wreck behind." 
 
 After tea, and the lamps lit, the different sets were seen 
 discussing the events of that day ; and it would fill a book 
 to report the half of the really interesting conversations 
 that were held. The book man was lefturing upon optics 
 and showing " Kate " how the laws of light were to be 
 understood, on reflexion and refrallion j and how these 
 effefts were produced this afternoon by the rays striking 
 a certain angle of incidence ; all of which was Greek to me. 
 
 " Uncle," said " Kate," " tell us what you were thinking 
 of during that wonderfiil vision." " Oh, yes," said the 
 mother, " you have traveled, brother, in the old world, and 
 can enlighten us." " My story has a moral to it," said the 
 clergyman, for I found he was one. " The mysteriously 
 grand temple we have beheld in the cloud has brought to 
 my mind the fleeting nature of all earthly temples. When 
 I first saw the Parthenon at Athens, looking out on the 
 ./Egean Sea fi-om the highest point of the Acropolis, I said 
 there is man's finest workmanship passing, after it has 
 stood two thousand years. Again, I saw on Calton Hill, 
 Edinburgh, how the proud Scotchmen attempted to imitate 
 their ancient models, and' failed. Their Parthenon is 
 
246 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 already like a ruin. And here, on a higher emioence still, 
 stands a building that, at a distance, rivals both in appear- 
 ance, till you come near and find that it is but wood, and 
 shall pass away sooner than either of those I have referred 
 to. But to-day, as if in mockery of all earthly greatness, 
 we have seen an airy Parthenon passing by us hke a dream. 
 Truly, 
 
 " * This world is all a fleeting show, 
 For man's illusion given.' " 
 
 There was nothing to be seen next day, and the greater 
 part was spent in hope of conjuring up something before 
 it was done. About three o'clock I heard the cry of " A 
 rainbow ! a rainbow ! " and on looking down towards the 
 river I perceived that the right limb of a large bow was 
 already formed. It gradually took its proper shape, until 
 its colors came all out in their completeness. The shower 
 was falling on the river, and supposing that to be the cord, 
 the extent must have been twenty miles in length, with a 
 span in proportion. It was such a token as Noah saw 
 from Ararat, rising on the plain of Shinar. 
 
 It was interesting to listen to the remarks of the spec- 
 tators — moralizing, poetizing, and philosophizing. A young 
 wife and mother stood next me, wrapt in admiration, 
 and asked of her material husband if he did not think 
 " that would make a noble gateway for the ' house made 
 without hands,' that we saw yesterday ? " " Umph ! " said 
 the careful father, "pick up your raisins there, you little 
 fool. What is that you said, my dear, about gate-posts f " 
 " Oh, see," said the really enraptured wife, " what a gem 
 is there. See ! see ! the sun is tinting that cloud with 
 gold, till it looks like a throne in the heavens." The deep 
 solemn voice of the grave man was repeating in an under- 
 tone, " And there was a rainbbw round about the throne. 
 
And the Region Around. 247 
 
 in sight like unto an emerald. And the city had twelve 
 gates, and every several gate was one pearl." " Tom " 
 was not behind the rest with his word. The idea of that 
 being an entrance to the palace of yesterday caught his 
 fancy, and he was repeating, with variations, 
 
 " StUl seem as in my iniknt days, 
 A glorious gaieiiiay given. 
 For happy spirits to alight, 
 Between the earth and heaven," 
 
 The shower passed to the eastward, and the great bow 
 fell flat upon the black surface, and did appear like a fallen 
 arch, the remnant of departed glory. 
 
 I must take for granted that the ride to the falls and 
 the general features of the region are known ; but this 
 day was remarkable for new objefts of interest to me. 
 
 Standing on the south-west point, after going round 
 below the cascade, I became drenched and almost suf- 
 focated with the steam, which rose through the air so 
 thick that I could not see across the boiling caldron, and 
 was glad to stand still and take breath. So much rain 
 had fallen for a week, the torrent was greater than I had 
 ever seen it before. It seemed that I was standing within 
 the crater of a volcano, deep and fearful. After steadying 
 my feet and my head, my eyes caught the iris of a rain- 
 bow of uncommon brilliancy. At first I was inclined to 
 believe myself under some visual delusion, and that in my 
 eagerness to retain the image of what I had already seen 
 that day, this was but the spectrum of that other rain- 
 bow. But as I looked up I saw the sun reflefted from 
 millions of prisms, hung on every tree and blade of grass 
 around. And from the point where I stood, round to the 
 opposite side of the gulf, there was one solid mass of 
 variegated glory. It seemed to be one jewel, upon which 
 I might have walked with ease. After the first surprise, 
 
248 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 I discovered that I stood within the rays of this bright- 
 ness. Was it presumption in me to feel enraptured, with 
 the bow of promise around my head, and the rpclc of ages 
 beneath my feet ? Blessed emblem of hope and immor- 
 tality ! 
 
 The sun had now gained the full ascendancy in the 
 heavens, and his setting gave us the hope of a bright 
 morning, and we retired to rest to-night, congratulating 
 ourselves on the wonderful things we had seen this day. 
 
 In the dark of the morning I heard gentle feet going 
 through the long passages, and, afraid of being late, I 
 hastened to the east side of the house, whe're the greater 
 part of the guests were before me ; and after looking at 
 the sky, and then at the spe6lators, I thought of the 
 Psalmist's words, " I wait for thee, as they that wait for 
 the eyelids of the morning." 
 
 Except a few scattered clouds the dawn was purer than 
 the crystal, for it was unassociated with any material 
 thing. It brought all the beautiful things of this world to 
 remembrance. An infant's eyes opening for the first time 
 on a world of sin. The caflus in full flower, with its 
 purple and azure mingling. 
 
 Two small clouds, half way up the sky, towards the 
 north-east, caught the earliest tints of glory : then, higher 
 up, another became so white that it was at last painful to 
 look at. In my eagerness to see all and catch the first 
 glance of the sun himself, my eyes were dazzled so that I 
 was almost blinded. It was therefore a great relief to 
 hear a voice cry out from one of the windows. Look 
 below ! look below ! 
 
 And we all looked, but the whole scene was unutterably 
 grand. The sea ! the sea ! many voices said at once. 
 From the verge of the cliff, as far as the eye could reach, 
 it was rolling vapor ; the waves rose and fell in hills and 
 
And the Region Around. 249 
 
 deep valleys, coming on like the tide and retiring ; and 
 I caught myself involuntarily listening for the dash of the 
 surge. But the silence was alarming. The sea so meas- 
 ureless ; so disturbed to the eye ; so near, and yet so 
 speechless to the ear. It was not a dead sea, for it moved ; 
 but it was the movement of oblivion. How melancholy 
 to think on the thousands of buried homes, wrapt in that 
 cold cheerless sheet ; and we up here, basking in the 
 beams of heaven's own brightness. 
 
 The two clouds nearest the east had become solid gold, 
 we thought nothing could be brighter, till a moment after 
 the king himself appeared. It was as if the helmet of a 
 conqueror had risen on the top of a hill ; but there he 
 •was himself, unexcelled. His aflual presence produced 
 a sudden tremor, and tears gushed plentifully at the sight. 
 
 We had now time to look beneath, and already there 
 was an evident movement, as if some great commotion 
 was taking place beneath, at the centre. But it was the 
 sun now making himself felt, like the Spirit of God mov- 
 ing on the face of chaos, when he said, " Let there be 
 light, and there was light." We were waiting for the 
 " dry land" to appear. 
 
 The vapory mass began to move more rapidly, and as- 
 sume every fantastic shape that the imagination gave it 
 
 Monstrous giants rose, ruled, and departed like the 
 despots of antiquity. Ossian, before his blindness, must 
 have beheld the like, ere he described Fingal's combat with 
 the misty demon. And so did Milton, doubtless, while 
 " holy light " entered his early eye ; when from the " al- 
 pine heights " he saw the celestial and infernal armies, as 
 here, deploying, then closing, then recoiling in terrific 
 fuTy. 
 
 " Uncle," said the sensitive girl, "tell me yih^Xyou see 
 there." " Oh, child, child, I see, I see what is unspeakable. 
 
250 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 There is Tophet sending forth its smoke ; look at that 
 yawning gulf, was ever anything so capacious ; and there 
 beyond is Mount Sinai in awful hidden darkness." " Yes, 
 brother," said the mother, " but look up higher, and tell 
 me what you think of those clouds that have become 
 separated from the rest, and that are now already tinged 
 with heaven's gold." " Oh, it was in such a chariot as that 
 my Master ascended, when a cloud received Him out of 
 their sight ; " and the solemn man wept like a child. In 
 about an hour from sunrise the several fleeces had been 
 lifted up from the earth, till the hills with which I was 
 familiar became apparent, but still huge and awful. And 
 there the river ran dark, in the mist, like the mysterious 
 St)rx of the region of Pluto ; and as the clouds passed 
 over it they seemed to be fleets of departed nations who 
 were there navigating their shadowy barks, joyless and 
 hopeless. What a contrast between that gloomy region 
 and the rich panorama that is spread out here at noon. 
 Then that river reminds one of the " river of life, clear as 
 crystal," and of that world, when the veil of mystery will 
 be removed, and we shall look no more through a glass 
 darkly. 
 
CASCADE AT "THE HIGH KOCKS." 
 
And the Region Around. 251 
 
 TRAVELS AT HOME. 
 
 BY BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 I HAVE been so often asked, " Where are you going to 
 next ? " and have so often answered, " I am going to travel 
 at home," that what was at first intended for a joke, has 
 naturally resolved itself into a reality. The genuine travel- 
 er has a chronic dislike of railways, and if he be in addi- 
 tion a leflurer, who is obliged to sit in a cramped position 
 and breathe bad air for five months of the year, he is the 
 less likely to prolong his winter tortures through the sum- 
 mer. Hence, it is scarcely a wonder that, although I have 
 seen so much of our country, I have traveled so little in 
 it. I knew the Himalayas before I had seen the Green 
 Mountains, the Cataradls of the Nile before Niagara, and 
 the Libyan Desert before the Illinois prairies. I have 
 never yet (let me make the disgraceful confession at the 
 outset) beheld the White Mountains, or Quebec, or the 
 Saguenay, or Lake George, or Trenton Falls ! 
 
 In all probabilitj' I should now be at home, enjoying 
 summer indolence under the shade of my oaks, were it not 
 for the visit of some European friends, who have come 
 over to see the land which all their kindness could not 
 make their friend forget. The latter, in fafl, possesses a 
 fair share of the national sensitiveness, and defended his 
 country with so much zeal and magnificent assertions, that 
 his present visitors were not a little curious to see whether 
 their own impressions would correspond with his piftures. 
 He, on the other hand, being anxious to maintain his own 
 as well as his country's credit, offered his services as guide 
 
252 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 and showman to our mountains, rivers, lakes, and cata- 
 rafts ; and this is how he (I, you understand) came to 
 start upon the present journey. On the whole, I think it 
 a good plan not to see all your own country until after you 
 have seen other lands. It is easy to say, with the school- 
 girls, " I adore Nature ! " — but he who adores never criti- 
 cises. " What a beautiful view ! " everyone may cry : 
 " Why is it beautiful ? " would puzzle many to answer. 
 Long study, careful observation, and various standards of 
 comparison are necessary — as much so as in art — to enable 
 one to pronounce upon the relative excellence of scenery. 
 I shall have, on this tour, the assistance of a pair of expe- 
 rienced, appreciative foreign eyes, in addition to my own, 
 and you may therefore rely upon my giving you a tolerably 
 impartial report upon American life and landscapes. 
 
 When one has a point to carry, the beginning is every- 
 thing. I therefore embarked with my friends on a North 
 River day-boat, at the Harrison street pier. The calliope, 
 or steam-organ attached to the machine, was playing "Jor- 
 dan's a hard road to travel," with astonishing shrillness 
 and power. " There's an American invention ! " I ex- 
 claimed, in triumph ; " the waste steam, instead of being 
 blown off, is turned into an immense hand-organ, and made 
 to grind out this delightful music." 
 
 Several years had passed since I had seen the Hudson 
 from the deck of a steamer. I found great changes, and 
 for the better. The elegant summer residences of New 
 Yorkers, peeping out from groves nestled in warm dells, 
 or, most usually, crowning the highest points of the hills, 
 now extend more than half-way to Albany. 
 
 The trees have been judiciously spared, straggling woods 
 carved into shape, stony slopes converted into turf, and, in 
 faft, the long landscape of the eastern bank gardened into 
 more perfeft beauty. Those Gothic, Tuscan, and Nor- 
 
And the Region Around. 253 
 
 man villas, with their air of comfort and home, give an 
 attraftive, human sentiment to the scenery ; and I would 
 not exchange them for the castles of the Rhine. 
 
 The Highlands, of course, impressed my friends as 
 much as I could have wished. It is customary among 
 our tourists to deplore the absence of ruins on those 
 heights — a very unnecessary regret, in my opinion. To 
 show that we have associations fully as inspiring as those 
 connected with feudal warfare, I related the story of Stony 
 Point, and Andre's capture ; and pointed out, successively, 
 Kosciusko's Monument, old Fort Putnam, and Washing- 
 ton's Headquarters. Sunnyside was also a classic spot 
 to my friends, nor was Idlewild forgotten. 
 
 In due time we reached Catskill, and made all haste to 
 get off for the Mountain House. There are few summits 
 so easy of access — certainly no other mountain resort in 
 our country where the facilities of getting up and down 
 are so complete and satisfaftory. The journey would be 
 tame, however, were it not for the superb view of the 
 mountains, rising higher, and putting on a deeper blue, 
 with every mile of approach. 
 
 On reaching the foot of the mountain, the charafler of 
 the scenery entirely changes. The trees in Rip Van 
 Winkle's deU are large and luxuriant-leaved, while the 
 backward views, enframed with foliage and softly painted 
 by the blue pencil of the air, grow more charming as you 
 ascend. Ere long the shadow of the towering North 
 Mountain was flung over us, as we walked up in advance 
 of the laboring horses. The road was bathed in sylvan 
 coolness ; the noise of an invisible stream beguiled the 
 steepness of the way ; emerald ferns sprang from the rocks, 
 and the red blossoms of the showy rubus and the pale 
 blush of the laurel brightened the gloom of the under- 
 growth. It is fortunate that the wood has not been cut 
 
254 1^^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 away, and but rare glimpses of the scenes below are al- 
 lowed to the traveler. Landing in the rear of the Moun- 
 tain House, the huge white mass of which completely 
 shuts out the view, thirty paces bring you to the brink of 
 the rock, and you hang suspended, as if by magic, over 
 the world. 
 
 It was a quarter of an hour before sunset — perhaps the 
 best moment of the day for the Catskill panorama. The 
 shadows of the mountain-tops reached nearly to the Hud- 
 son, while the sun, shining direftly down the Clove, inter- 
 posed a thin wedge of golden lustre between. The farm- 
 houses on a thousand hills beyond the river sparkled in 
 the glow, and the Berkshire mountains swam in a lumin- 
 ous, rosy mist. The shadows strode eastward at the 
 rate of a league a minute as we gazed ; the forests dark- 
 ened, the wheat-fields became brown, and the houses glim- 
 mered like extinguished stars. Then the cold north wind 
 blew, roaring in the pines, the last lurid purple faded away 
 from the distant hills, and in half an hour the world below 
 was as dark, and strange, and speftral, as if it were an 
 unknown planet we were passing on our journey through 
 space. 
 
 The scene from Catskill is unlike any other mountain 
 view that I know. It is imposing through the very sim- 
 plicity o/ its features. A line drawn from north to south 
 through the sphere of vision divides it into two equal 
 parts. The western half is mountain, falling off in a line 
 of rock parapet ; the eastern is a vast semicircle of blue 
 landscape, half a mile lower. Owing to the abrupt rise of 
 the mountain, the nearest farms at the base seem to be 
 almost under one's feet ; and the country, as far as the 
 Hudson, presents almost the same appearance as if seen 
 from a balloon. Its undulations have vanished ; it is as 
 flat as a pancake ; and even the bold line of hills stretch- 
 
Avd the Region Around. 255 
 
 ing toward Saugerties, can only be distinguished by the 
 color of the forests upon them. Beyond the river, although 
 the markings of the hills are lost, the rapid rise of the 
 country from the water-level is very distinflly seen ; the 
 whole region appears to be lifted on a sloping plane, so as 
 to expose the greatest possible surface to the eye. On the 
 horizon the Hudson Highlands, the Berkshire and Green 
 mountains unite their chains, forming a continuous line of 
 misty blue. 
 
 At noonday, under a cloudless sky, the pifture is rather 
 monotonous. After the eye is accustomed to its grand, 
 aerial depth, one seeks relief in spying out the charafter- 
 istics of the separate farms, or in watching specks (of the 
 size of fleas) crawling along the highways. Yonder man 
 and horse, going up and down between the rows of corn, 
 resemble a little black bug on a bit of striped calico. When 
 the sky is full of moving clouds, however, nothing can be 
 more beautiful than the shifting masses of light and shade, 
 traversing such an immense field. There are, also, brief 
 moments when the sun or moon is reflefted in the Hud- 
 son ; when rainbows bend slantingly beneath you, striking 
 bars of seven-hued flame across the landscape ; when, 
 even, the thunders march below, and the fountains of the 
 rain are under your feet. 
 
 What most impressed my friends was the originality of 
 the view. Familiar with the best mountain scenery of 
 Europe, they could find nothing with which to compare it. 
 As my movements during this journey are guided entirely 
 by their wishes, I was glad when they said, " Let us stay 
 here ' another day.' " 
 
 We have front rooms at the Mountain House ; have 
 you ever had one ? Through the white, Corinthian pil- 
 lars of the portico — pillars, which, I must say, are very 
 well proportioned — you get much the same eflTefls as 
 
256 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 through those of the Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis. 
 You can open your window, breathing the delicious moun- 
 tain air in sleep (under a blanket), and, without lifting your 
 head from the pillow, see the sun come up a hundred miles 
 away. 
 
 Those, I find, who visit Catskill, come again. This is 
 my fourth ascent, and I trust it is far from being my last. 
 More to-morrow. 
 
 At the foot of the Catskill Mountain, the laurel showed 
 its dark-red seed vessels ; half-way up, the last faded blos- 
 soms were dropping off; but, as we approached the top, 
 the dense thickets were covered with a glory of blossoms. 
 Far and near, in the caverns of shade under the pines 
 and oaks and maples, flashed whole mounds of flowers, 
 white and blush-color, dotted with the vivid pink of the 
 crimped buds. The finest cape azaleas and ericas are 
 scarcely more beautiful than our laurel. Between those 
 mounds bloomed the flame-colored lily, scarcely to be 
 distinguished, at a little distance, from the breast of an 
 oriole. The forest scenery was a curious amalgamation 
 of Norway and the tropics. " What a land, what a cli- 
 mate," exclaimed one of my friends, "that can support 
 such inconsistencies ! " " After this," I replied, " it will 
 perhaps be easier for you to comprehend the apparent in- 
 consistencies, the opposing elements, which you will find 
 in the American charafter." 
 
 The next morning we walked to the Katterskill Falls. 
 Since my last visit (in 1851), a handsome hotel — the Lau- 
 rel House — has been erefled here by Mr. Schutt. The 
 road into the Clove has also been improved, and the 
 guests at the Mountain House make frequent excursions 
 into the wild heart of the Catskill region, especially to 
 Stony Clove, fourteen miles distant, at the foot of the 
 
And the Region Around. 257 
 
 blue mountain which faces you as you look down the Kat- 
 terskill»glen. The falls are very lovely (I think that is 
 the proper word)— they will bear seeing many times — but 
 don't believe those who tell you that they surpass Niaga- 
 ra. Some people have a habit of pronouncing every last 
 view they see " the finest thing in the world ! " 
 
 The damming up of the water, so much deprecated by 
 the romantic, strikes me as an admirable arrangement. 
 When the dam is full the stream overruns it, and you 
 have as much water as if there were no dam. Then, as 
 you stand at the head of the lower fall, watching the slen- 
 der scarf of silver fluttering down the black gulf, comes a 
 sudden, dazzling rush from the summit ; the fall leaps 
 away, from the half-way ledge where it lingered, bursting 
 in rockets and shooting stars of spray on the rocks, and 
 you have the full effeft of the stream when swollen by 
 spring thaws. Really, this temporary increase of volume 
 is the finest feature of the fall. 
 
 No visitor to Catskill should negledl a visit to the North 
 and South mountains. The views *from these points, al- 
 though almost identical with that from the House, have 
 yet different foregrounds, and embrace additional seg- 
 ments of the horizon. The North Peak, I fancy, must 
 have been in Bryant's mind when he wrote his poem of 
 "The Hunter." Those beautiful features, which hovered 
 before the hunter's eyes, in the blue gulf of air, as he 
 dreamed on the rock, are they not those of the same 
 maiden who, rising from the still stream, enticed Goethe's 
 " Fisher " into its waves ? — the poetic embodiment of that 
 fascination which lurks in height and depth ? Opposite 
 the North Rock there is a weather-beaten pine, which, 
 springing from the mountain-side below, lifts its head just 
 to the level of the rock, and not more than twelve feet in 
 front of it. I never see it without feeling a keen desire to 
 17 
 
258 The Cats kill Mountains, ' 
 
 spring from the rock and lodge in its top. The Hanlon 
 Brothers or Blondin, I presume, would not have the least 
 objeftion to perform such a feat. 
 
 In certain conditions of the atmosphere the air between 
 you and the lower world seems to become a visible fluid, 
 an ocean of pale, crystalline blue, at the bottom of which 
 the landscape lies. Peering down into its depths, you at 
 last experience a numbness of the senses, a delicious 
 wandering of the "imagination, such as follows the fifth 
 pipe of opium. Or, in the words of Walt Whitman, you 
 " loaf, and invite your soul." 
 
 The guests we found at the Mountain House were 
 rather a quiet company. Several entire families were 
 quartered there for the season, but it was perhaps too 
 early for the evening hops and sunrise flirtations which I 
 noticed ten years ago. Parties formed and strolled off 
 quietly into the woods ; elderly gentlemen sank into arm- 
 chairs on the rocks, and watched the steamers on the 
 Hudson ; nurses pulled venturous children away from the 
 precipice, and young' gentlemen from afar sat on the ve- 
 randah and wrote in their note-books. You would not 
 have guessed the number of guests if you had not seen 
 them at table. I found this quiet, this nonchalance, this 
 " take care of yourself and let other people alone " char- 
 afteristic very agreeable, and the difference, in this re- 
 spefl, since my last visit, leads me to hope that there has 
 been a general improvement (which was highly needed) 
 in the public manners of the Americans. 
 
And the Region Around. 259 
 
 A SABBATH ON THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 BY REV. THEODORE L. CUYLER, D.D. 
 
 Yesterday was a golden Sabbath. With a chastened 
 warmth the sun-rays fell through the crystal air — an 
 air so pure that the slightest sound from cawing crow or 
 whistling robin in the pines beneath us, came up to our 
 ears distinftly. 
 
 " Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. 
 Bridal of earth and sky." 
 
 By five o'clock we were out upon the ledge in front of 
 the hotel, for you must remember that the Mountain 
 House is hung, like an eagle's nest, right on the verge of 
 the precipice. As we came out to the table-rock, the sun 
 was just coming up to the horizon. Aurora, with rosy 
 finger, was opening the portals of the east. A long, fleecy 
 cloud, whose lower surface was dyed with crimson, which 
 faded into pink and then into a pearl-white, lay motionless 
 in the glowing air. Between the Hudson and the far- 
 away hills of Berkshire were heaped up banks of vapor 
 which parted at the coming of the king of day — ^like co- 
 horts parting right and left to receive an advancing sover- 
 eign. Detachments of mist were floating out from the 
 entrance of the " Clove," and moving oflf toward the silver 
 Hudson. Presently the river began to turn to paly gold. 
 Then brighter. Then redder. Then it burned into a 
 molten mirror of crimson, for the sun had already passed 
 up from the horizon and veiled his glorious face behind 
 the mantling cloud. So screened was his brightness from 
 
26o The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 the eye, that we could look down undazzled upon the gor- 
 geous panorama of the veil beneath. Far oif toward the 
 south, smoked the Highlands with their morning incense. 
 Nearer lay the winding of the river before Hyde Park. 
 Saugerties, with its white church-.spires, was at our feet 
 A patch of green no larger than a man's hand, on the 
 opposite side of the river from Catskill, marked the spot 
 on which the painter Church is gathering materials for 
 his nest. The cottage (Mrs. Cole's) in which, with his 
 new-found mate, he is now waiting for the season of nidi- 
 fication, is also distinftly in view. Across the field from 
 the cottage stands the studio of Cole, from which came 
 forth the immortal " Voyage of Life," and in which still 
 remains the unfinished " Cross and the World." Beyond 
 this haunt of genius lies the bay of Hudson, golden in the 
 sunlight, then the spires of Hudson City, then verdant 
 farms and forest, and in the dim, mist-covered background 
 swell upward the Green Mountains of Vermont. 
 
 A half-dozen of our fellow-lodgers, who, like ourselves, 
 wished to begin the day's worship early, were standing 
 beside us on the rocks, wrapped in cloaks and shawls. 
 There was a dim resemblance in the scene to a sunrise on 
 the Righi. But alas ! no glaciers, no sky-piercing pin- 
 nacle of ice, was in sight. No sublimity, either, was 
 there in our speftacle ; but there was beauty infinite, 
 beauty beyond aught that we have seen from mountain- 
 top before, beauty beyond the reach of words. The sub- 
 lime is only to be found at Catskill when a thunder-storm 
 is mustering its battalions and discharging its terrific 
 artillery among the " rattling peaks." At other times, 
 the one sensation that is inspired by every varying view 
 from sunrise to sunset, is that of beauty unending and 
 illimitable. And never is the spedlacle so surpassingly 
 beautiful as at the day-dawn of a summer's morn. 
 
Aftd the Region Around. 261 
 
 After breakfast, the large company gathered in groups 
 upon the ledge until the hour of service, or, with book in 
 hand, strolled up into the thickets toward South Moun- 
 tain. A few drove off to the Kauterskill Falls about three 
 miles distant ; but the Sabbath arrangements of our Sab- 
 bath-observing host were cordially responded to by nine- 
 tenths of all his guests. This house is a " sweet home '' 
 all the week, and a sandhiary on the Lord's day. 
 
 At eleven o'clock a gong sounded through the halls, 
 and the parlors were soon filled by a quiet, reverential 
 audience. A pulpit was extemporized in one comer of 
 the drawing-room, quite as much of a pulpit as that from 
 behind which Boanerges thunders every Sunday in Ply- 
 mouth church. We had delightful music, for the leader 
 of the " First Dutch Church " of Brooklyn, with his ac- 
 complished soprano, was present. Their rich voices led 
 ours, as we joined in good old " Coronation ;" and with 
 swelling chorus shouted out, " Rise, my soul, and stretch 
 thy wings," in a style that would have gladdened Father 
 Hastings' soul. A stout substantial Scotch divine gave 
 us a discourse quite Chalmerian in charafler, on the 
 " wondrous works of God " in creation, providence, and 
 redemption. We all like his Scotch brogue exceedingly ; 
 it is an unftuous brogue, whether for song or for sermon ; 
 whether in Burns's lyrics or from Guthrie's pulpit. In 
 that Gslicized English have been delivered many of the 
 most magnificent discourses of modern days. In the 
 afternoon our hotel congregation gathered again to hear 
 a discourse from your Brooklyn friend on " Love for 
 Christ as the inspiration and joy of the Christian's life." 
 Even a third service in the evening was crowded to the 
 door ! Again our good dominie from the " land o' brown 
 heath" addressed us, his subjeft being the "Sepulchre 
 in the Garden ;" — again our eyes were lifted toward the 
 
262 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 everlasting hills whence cometh all our help — again our 
 voices rang out upon the stiU mountain air as we joined 
 in singing " Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people." When 
 the company separated, unwearied, to their rooms, the 
 general utterance was : " What a blessed Sabbath we 
 have had ! A more delightful we never passed than this 
 Sabbath on the Catskills !" 
 
 Yesterday was clear from dawn to twilight. To-day 
 the drenching rain is pouring down the window-pane. 
 Over the ledge lies an Atlantic of vapor without sail or 
 shore, and through the hemlocks on North mountain the 
 wind brattles like a hurricane. We are disappointed of 
 our expefted ride through the Clove, a deep ravine, which 
 was the favorite haunt of Cole, and of his pupil Church. 
 Over all this region these two sons of nature rambled to- 
 gether ; their names are as thoroughly identified with it 
 as the name of Scott with the Eildon Hills, or that of 
 Irving with the Hudson. Great as is the fame of Cole, 
 it is not outstripped by his more celebrated pupils. No 
 produdlion of Turner is superior to the Heart of the 
 Andes — ^not even the " Sunset View of Cologne," or the 
 " Building of Carthage." Claude is the acknowledged 
 prince of landscape painters ; yet in a distant land of 
 which Claude had never heard, has risen up a youth who 
 need not fear to have his produflions hung on the same 
 wall with the masterpieces of the man whose piflures used 
 to sell for as much gold as would cover the canvass. 
 Were the " Twilight in the Wilderness " to be found a few 
 years hence in some dusty corner of an Italian convent, it 
 might pass for a gem of Venetian or Florentine genius. 
 Yet its author once played, a Yankee boy, in the streets of 
 Hartford, and learned the secrets of his wondrous art, not 
 in foreign galleries, but in yonder glorious Clove-gallery of 
 rocks and mountain-pines, built by the Almighty arm. 
 
And the Region Around. 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Thomas Cole.— Hk Early Life.— His fiist Visit to the Mountains, and At- 
 tachment to them.— Paintings of them.— Cols. Trumbull, Dunlap, Durand. 
 —Cole's Early Fame. — Bryant— Sumise on the Mountains.— Poetry.— 
 Windham.— Rev. Mr. Stimson.— Trip to Windham.— A Rude Hotel.— 
 A Storm in the Mounuins.— The Bewilderment -Fearfiil Peril and 
 Final Escape.— A Dream.— Poetry.— A Trip to the Mountains.— The 
 Lakes.— Scenery there.— Durand's Painting of Rip Van Winkle.— Excur- 
 sion to High Peak. — American and Swiss Scenery compared. — Plattekill 
 Clove. 
 
 THERE is no one whose name, either as author 
 or artist, is more prominent, in connection with 
 the Catskill Mountains and the country around; 
 than Thomas Cole, N. A., who has left behind him, as 
 enduring memorials of his fame, " The Course of Em- 
 pire," " The Voyage of Life," and other paintings of high 
 artistic merit and fame. Mr. Cole was a native of Eng- 
 land, but came to this country, with his father's family, 
 when nineteen years of age. After enduring the priva- 
 tions of poverty for years, as an engraver, a traveling por- 
 trait painter, and in other callings and pursuits in life, he, 
 at length, by the force of his talents, genius, industry, 
 perseverance, and patient and enduring toil and study, 
 became one of the most eminent and successful landscape 
 painters in the world. To his warm personal friend, pas- 
 tor, and biographer. Rev. Louis L. Noble, formerly of 
 Catskill, we are indebted for a full, able, and interesting 
 record of the life, labors, personal chara£ler, and success 
 in his profession, of Mr. Cole. 
 
264 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 As Cole early visited the Catskill Mountains, and after- 
 wards, for many years, on to the end of life, had his family 
 residence and studio near the village of Catskill, in full 
 view of all the higher summits of the range, he had, from 
 the first, a peculiar interest in them, and an ardent and 
 enthusiastic attachment to them. Of his first excursion 
 up the Hudson River, his biographer thus writes : — 
 " From the moment when his eye first caught the rural 
 beauties clustering round the cliffs of Weehawken, and 
 glanced up the distance of the PaUsades, Cole's heart had 
 been wandering in the Highlands, and nestling in the 
 bosom of the Catskills. It is needless to say that he fol- 
 lowed its impulses, at his earliest liberty, in the Autumn 
 ensuing." 
 
 " If it be interesting to know what were his first im- 
 pressions of the romantic scenery now made familiar to 
 art by his pencil, it is certain that they were even more 
 lively than he had himself anticipated. It charmed his 
 eye, and took his soul captive. What his affedlions so 
 readily embraced, only became dearer to him the more he 
 enjoyed it. Wherever he subsequently traveled, whether 
 among the lakes and hills of England, the Alban heights, 
 or the Alps, up the sides of the Apennines, or of Etna, 
 along the seashore, down the Rhone or the Rhine, he 
 always turned to the Hudson, and the summits that pierce 
 its clouds, and darken its blue skies, with the strength 
 and tenderness of a first love. It is questionable whether 
 after this, he ever painted a piflure, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of his European landscapes, which does not bear 
 witness to some feature peculiar to this land of his heart" 
 
 Of the paintings of Cole after his return from this 
 excursion to the Catskill Mountains, one was " A Lake 
 with Dead Trees," suggested, perhaps, by one of the lakes 
 near the Mountain House, with the dead trees around it, 
 
And the Region Around. 265 
 
 many such being found there, as reh'cs and memorials of 
 the wildly raging fires which, from time to time, sweep over 
 the mountains ; and of which we had a fearfully sublime 
 example during* the dry summer of 1864, when the flames 
 reached within a few feet of the outbuildings at the Moun- 
 tain House, and the costly stru6ture there owed its safety 
 mainly to a fire-engine, which had been hastily brought 
 there, from the village of Catskill, twelve miles distant. 
 A view by night, of the mountains, with the flames roll- 
 ing along their sides and summits, and shining, forth 
 from the trunks and tops of lofty forest trees, is a scene of 
 exciting and appalling splendor, well nigh as grand and 
 imposing as an eruption of Vesuvius or Etna. 
 
 Another painting by Cole, after his return from the 
 Mountains, was " The Falls of the Cauterskill," the last 
 word being here written as it is commonly pronounced, 
 though the proper original spelling of the word is Kaaters- 
 kiU, meaning the kill, or stream, of the Kaater, or male 
 wildcat, or lynx, an animal which is still often met with in 
 this region. This pifture of the Falls was purchased by 
 Colonel Trumbull, the celebrated historical painter, and 
 two others by Dunlap and Durand, celebrated artists, to 
 whom Cole was thus introduced, and thus, by the aid of 
 these three distinguished friends, the attention and pa- 
 tronage of the public, far and wide, was secured by Cole, 
 though at that time but twenty-four years of age. Trum- 
 bull then said to him : " You surprise me, at your age, to 
 paint like this. You have, already done what I, with all 
 my years and experience, am yet unable to do." Durand 
 said of him, " His fame spread like fire ;'' and Bryant, in 
 his " Funeral Oration," thus wrote : " From that time he 
 had a fixed reputation, and was numbered among the men 
 of whom our country has reason to be proud." Thus it 
 would seem that the eagle-winged genius of Cole received 
 
266 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 an early inspiration, and made its first daring and success- 
 ful flight from the summit of the Catskills ; and hence it 
 is not strange that ever after it should have been the 
 home of his heart's aflfeClions, within full view of which 
 he fixed his life-long abode, and on which he fondly 
 gazed, as from above and beyond it the setting sun shone, 
 in its splendor and its beauty, on the closing scenes of 
 life. Thus were these rude and rugged cliffs to him like 
 the " Delegable Mountains " to the wayworn Christian 
 Pilgrim, clothed with attraflive grandeur and beauty, while 
 above and beyond them were the high glories and enduring 
 bliss of the Celestial City, the New Jerusalem on high. 
 
 It was a favorite maxim with Cole, that " To walk with 
 Nature as a poet is the necessary condition of a perfeft 
 artist." Hence he often, in his wanderings at the close 
 of the day, wrote in glowing language, in poetry, or prose, 
 or both, of the impressions made upon his mind by the 
 scenery around him. Of these sketches I here give one, 
 entitled 
 
 "sunrise from the CATSJtILL MOUNTAINS." 
 
 The mists were resting on the vale of the Hudson like 
 the drifted snow ; tops of distant mountains in the east 
 were visible-^things of another world. The sun rose 
 from bars of pearly hue ; above these were clouds light 
 and warm, and the clear sky was of a cool grayish tint. 
 The mist below the mountains began first to be lighted 
 up, and the trees on the tops of the lower hills cast their 
 shadows over the misty surface — innumerable streaks. 
 A line of light on the extreme horizon was very beauti- 
 ful. Seen through the breaking mist, the fields were 
 exquisitely fresh and green. Though dark, the mountain- 
 side was sparkling, and the Hudson, where it was uncover- 
 ed to the sight, slept in deep shadow. 
 
And the Region Around, 26y 
 
 In a poem of Cole's, entitled " The Wild," we have a 
 similar description : 
 
 " Friends of ray heart, lovers of Nature's works. 
 Let me transport you to those wild bhie mountains 
 That rear their summits near the Hudson's wave. 
 Though not the loftiest that begirt the land. 
 They yet subHmely rise, and on their heights 
 Your souls may have a sweet foretaste of heaven. 
 And traverse wide the boundless : From this rock, 
 The nearest to the sky, let us look out 
 Upon the earth, as the first swell of day 
 Is bearing back the duskiness of night 
 But lo I a sea of mist o'er all beneath ; 
 An ocean shoreless, motionless, and mute. 
 No rolling swell is there, no sounding surf ; 
 Silent and solemn all ; the stormy main 
 To stillne^ frozen, while the crested waves 
 Leaped in the whirlwind, and the loosen'd foam 
 Flew o'er the angry deep. 
 
 See I now ascends 
 The Lord of Day, waking with pearly fire 
 The dormant depths. See how his glowing breath 
 The rising sutges kindles : lo I they heave 
 Like golden sands upon Sahara's gales. 
 Those airy forms disporting from the mass, 
 Like winged ships sail o'er the wondrous plain. 
 Beautiful vision I Now the veil is rent. 
 And the coy earth her virgin bosom bares, 
 Sl^ly unfolding to the enraptured gaze 
 Her thousand charms." 
 
 In another place he writes as follows : 
 
 " Oh, for an hour 
 Upon that sacred hill, that I might sleep, 
 And with poetic fervor wake inspired 1 
 Then would I tell how pleasures spring like flowers 
 Within the bosom of the wilderness, 
 And call from cnmibling fenes my feUow-men 
 To kneel in Nature's everlasting dome, 
 Where.not the voice of feeble man doth teach, 
 But His, who in the rolling thunder spealis. 
 Or in the silence of the shady night. 
 
268 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Breathes in His power upon the startled ear. 
 Then would I tell the seasons' change ; how spring 
 With tears and smiles speeds up the mountain's side. 
 And summer sips the moisture of her steps ; 
 Tell how rich autumn, decked in colored rohe, 
 Laughing at thirsty summer, ceaseless shakes 
 The juicy fruits from her luxurious lap. 
 And winter, rending, in his angry mood. 
 With cold, remorseless hand, the mantle bright 
 His dying sister left him, rudely sweeps 
 His snowy beard o'er all the beauteous world. 
 
 The sun was set in peace. It was the hour 
 When all things have a tone of sadness. 
 When the soft cloud moves not in its azure bed. 
 Left by the purple day to fade and die. 
 But beautiftil and lovely in its death. 
 As is the virgin who has died of love." 
 
 WINDHAM. 
 
 This town lies on the western side of the Catskills, 
 north-west of the Mountain House, and about as high 
 above the level of the Hudson River as is the region 
 around the Pine Orchard, where the Mountain House is ; 
 while higher mountain summits rise between these two 
 points, where, and in the deep ravines along their sides, 
 bears and other wild animals find a rude ancl safe retreat. 
 The view from the road from Cairo to Windham, up the 
 north-eastern point of the mountains, is one of the most 
 striking and attractive in all this region, in the fertile, high- 
 ly-cultivated, and richly-varied rural scenery of forest and 
 •field which meets the eye, when near the summit of the 
 mountain one looks to the north on the towns of Durham, 
 Greenville, and the country far and wide around. 
 
 In the southern part of the pleasant village of Windham 
 Center is a large, smooth, perpendicular rock, at right- 
 angles to the street, from ten to.twenty feet in height and 
 breadth. In the year 1785, Henry B. Stimson, then a boy 
 
And the Region Around. 26g 
 
 fourteen years of age, came from Hopkinton, Massachu- 
 setts, with his father, who was more than sixty years of 
 age ; and the two built, against the side of that rock, a 
 rude cabin of brush and logs, with a roof of bark ; and 
 there they lived, among bears, wolves, and panthers, two 
 years, until the other members of their family removed 
 there. Their nearest neighbors were at Prattsville, ten 
 miles in one direftion, and at Cairo, sixteen miles in the 
 other ; and they brought their Indian corn, and other pro- 
 visions, from the east side of the Hudson River, some 
 thirty miles distant This corn they bruised or ground 
 with a stone, pn the top of a large rock. Just as the first 
 winter of their sojourn there commenced, their rude cabin, 
 with everything in it, was burned ; and then they reared 
 another, which was but a poor shelter for them, amid the 
 deep snows and raging winds of those mountain heights. 
 At the age of twenty, the son had been at school but 
 three or four months in all ; and yet, by the diligent read- 
 ing and study of such books as he could obtain, much of it at 
 night, after severe toil by day, lighted by pine-knots stuck in 
 the back of the chimney of their log-cabin, and lying with his 
 book on the floor before him, he laid the foundation of a 
 solid, useful education ; so that, at the age of thirty, with 
 only one year's schooling abroad, and the aid, to some 
 extent, of clergymen several miles from him, he became 
 the first pastor of the Presbyterian Church, founded by 
 him in Windham ; and in twenty-two years admitted be- 
 tween six and seven hundred to its communion, baptized 
 about the same number of children, and married nearly 
 two hundred couples. His mountain diocese embraced 
 what are now five or six townships, and he often attended 
 four or five religious services, several miles distant from 
 each other, on a single Sabbath. All honor to such hardy 
 and hard-working pioneers, who laid broad and deep the 
 
270 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 foundations of religious truth and order, to enlighten and 
 guide all who should come after them. Mr. Stimson 
 preached most of his life in the region where he first came 
 as a pioneer, and in 1852, died, where his family still live, 
 in the eightieth year of his age, having, for the last eight 
 years of his life, been deranged. 
 
 The biographer of Cole thus writes of him : — " Attrafl- 
 ed by the wild scenery of Windham, he made an excur- 
 sion there in the Autumn of 1826. The following is a 
 description of an ascent to a mountain summit : — 
 
 TRIP TO WINDHAM. 
 
 October 8th, 
 
 At an hour and a half before sunset I bad a steep and 
 lofty mountain before me, heavily wooded, and infested 
 with wolves and bears ; and as I had been informed, with 
 no house for six miles. But I determined, in spite of all 
 difficulties, and an indescribable feeling of melancholy, to 
 attain my objeft : so pressing my portfolio to my side, I 
 dashed iip the dark and woody height. After climbing 
 some three miles of steep and broken road, I found my- 
 self near the summit of the mountain, with (thanks to 
 some fire of past times) a wide prospedl. Above me, 
 jutted out some hare rocks j to these I clambered up, 
 and sat upon my mountain throne, the monarch of the 
 scene. The sun was now nearly setting, and the shadows 
 veiled in dim obscurity the quiet valley. Here and there 
 a stream faintly sparkled; clouds flaming in the last 
 glories of day hung on the points of the highest peaks, 
 like torches lifted by the earth to kindle the lamps of 
 heaven. Summit rose above summit, mountain rolled 
 away beyond mountain. The prospedt was sublime. A 
 hasty sketch or two, and I commenced my descent. After 
 a hurried walk of two or three miles, I came to a log 
 house, a rude swinging sign pointing it 6ut as a place of 
 
And the Region Around. 271 
 
 sojourn for the night. I walked in, and it appeared com- 
 fortless enough. I felt as though I should be more com- 
 fortable in the woods. I was relieved, however, when my 
 landlady appeared with clean and smiling face, and asked 
 me upstairs. A scene of neatness here presented itself 
 that I had not expefted. After a plain supper of cheese, 
 rye-bread and butter, I was entertained by an old hunter 
 with a recital of feats of the chase. Here in this valley 
 he and his wife had resided more than twenty years, and 
 raised, with the help of no hands but their own, the first 
 log-house. Those were days of privation and hardship 
 for the pioneer, but he looks back upon them as days of 
 happiness. 'There were but few of us, then,' the old 
 hunter said, ' and we loved and helped one another ; but it 
 is not so now.' I believe all the people in the little settlement 
 flocked together in the evening to see me — a strange ani- 
 mal, surely; and a hard-featured, long-bearded, long- 
 legged company they were. My portfolio was an objeft 
 of universal curiosity. One wiseacre pronounced it, in a 
 low voice, 'a grammar.^ They took the liberty, when 
 my back was turned, of opening it, in order to see what 
 so large a book might contain. What discoveries they 
 made in their own estimation I hardly know. I simply 
 heard something about maps. I slept soundly, rose early 
 at a good breakfast, and desired of my kind host what 
 was to pay. — One shilling. I offered them a bank-note, 
 as I had no silver ; unfortunately they could not change it, 
 and so I gave my noX^ for one shilling, payable on demand, 
 
 at 's, nine miles distant. I then took my way back 
 
 ' Over hills, over dales, through bush,, through briers.' " 
 The following sketch is also by Cole : — 
 
 STORM IN THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 In one of my mountain rambles I was overtaken by 
 
2/2 77?^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 a thunderstorm. In the early part of the day the sky was 
 brilliant and unclouded. As it advanced, huge masses of 
 vapor were seen moving across the deep blue. Though 
 there was some reason to expedt a storm, I contented 
 myself with the hope that the clouds would pass over the 
 mountains without unburdening themselves. My hope 
 proved fallacious. A sudden darkness enveloped the 
 scene, which a few moments before was beaming with 
 sunlight, and thunders muttered in the distance. It was 
 necessary soon to seek a shelter, which I found beneath 
 an overhanging rock. Under this massive canopy of 
 stone I took my station, with the feeling of one who 
 knows himself out of the reach of peril, while it is all 
 around him. Here, thought I, as I paced the rocky floor 
 of my temporary castle, I will watch unharmed the battle 
 of the elements. The storm came on in all its majesty. 
 Like a hoarse trumpet sounding to the charge, a strong blast 
 roared through the forest; which stooped in its weakness, 
 and shook off its leaves as thickly as in 06lober. To 
 this tremendous onset succeeded a death-like calm. The 
 deep gorge below me grew darker, and the gloom more 
 awful : terrific clouds gathered in their black wings, upon 
 the hollow hushed abyss, closer and closer. Expeftation 
 hung on every crag. A single pass of one long blade of 
 lightning through the silence, followed by a crash as of a 
 cloven mountain with a thousand echoes, was the signal 
 for the grand conflift. A light troop of raindrops first 
 swept forward, footing it over the boughs, with a soft and 
 whispery sound ; then came the tread of the heavy 
 shower : squadrons of vapor rolled in, shock succeeded 
 shock, thunderbolt fell on thunderbolt, peal followed 
 peal, waters dashed on every crag from the full sluices 
 of the sky. I was wrapped in the folds of the tempest, 
 and blinded to every prospeft beyond the rugged doorway 
 
And the Region Around. 273 
 
 ot the cave. Then came up a thousand fancies. I 
 thought myself careering in a chariot of rock through 
 airy wastes, beyond the reach of gravitation, with no law 
 but my own will. Now I rose over tnountainous billows 
 of mist, then plunged into the fathomless obscure. Night 
 shot athwart the darkness, darkness extinguished light : 
 to musical murmurs succeeded quick explosions. There 
 was no cessation, fixedness, or rest. The storm kept on, 
 strong and furious ; no fancy could dissipate the awful 
 reality ; no imagery of mind could amuse the fears that 
 began to throng around my heart ! Trees fell with a 
 stifled crash, catarafts mingled their din with the general 
 uproar. I began to fear that the rocks would be loosened 
 from the brow of the mountain' above me, and roll down 
 with overwhelming force. The lightning played round 
 my very tenement, and the thunder burst on my door-stone. 
 I felt as feeble as a child. Every moment my situation 
 was becoming more comfortless, as well as romantic. A 
 torrent, to all appearance parted by the projefting crag 
 which formed the roof of my shelter, came rushing down on 
 both sides of me, and met again a short distance below me. 
 Here I was, a captive to the floods, and began to meditate 
 the possibihty of having to spend the night in this dismal 
 nook. There was the hard rock, a little mat of moss, and 
 the remains of a mountain dinner in my knapsack. The 
 vrtnd drove the chilly vapor through my portals ; the big 
 drops gathered on my stone ceiling, and pattered on my hat 
 and clothes, and the waters began to flow in little brooks 
 across my floor. My bed of moss became a saturated sponge. 
 I piled the loose flakes of rock in the cave, and sought com- 
 fort on the rugged heap. My only hope was the sudden ces- 
 sation of the storm. I knew that the sun was hardly yet set- 
 ting, although the darkness had deepened fearfully. But this, 
 to my great joy, turned out to be the crisis of the tempest. 
 18 
 
2/4 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 " All at once a blast with the voice and force of a hurri- 
 cane swept up through the gulf, and lifted, with magical 
 swiftness, the whole mass of clouds high into the air. This 
 was the signal for a- general dispersion. A flood of light 
 burst in from the west, and jeweled with glittering rain- 
 drops the whole broad bosom of the mountain. The birds 
 began to sing, and I saw in a neighboring dell the blue 
 smoke curling quietly up from a cottage chimney." 
 
 Early in the summer of 1827, Cole was again in Cats- 
 kill, where he fitted up a room for painting ; and, as usual, 
 spent much time in the open air, sketching and drawing, 
 and wandering among the mountains. 
 
 The story which follows has a strong flavor of the fan- 
 ciful and romantic ; and yet to one familiar with the wild 
 scenery of the mountains, and the imposing and varied 
 force and grandeur of the raging torrents, which, after a 
 freshet, run down the deep ravines, scarce anything in the 
 way of description appears overdrawn or extravagant. 
 
 "the bewilderment. 
 
 " The sun was low in the sky, and seemed to hasten down 
 with unaccustomed speed, for I was alone and a stranger 
 in the wilderness. The nearest habitation was on the 
 other side of a mountain which rose before me, whose 
 tangled woods were the haunt of wild animals. I had 
 walked far that day, but my path had been through' regions 
 of nature that delight and impress the mind. Excitement 
 had well nigh carried me above the reach of fatigue, and 
 my feet were not slow upon the leaf-strewn path. A lone 
 man in the wilderness is affefted by every change of light 
 and shade, of sunshine and of storm. In the fine morn- 
 ing his spirits are fresh and elastic as the air he breathes, 
 and he feels as if weariness could never oppress him. 
 But when evening is dropping her dusky curtains the wind 
 
And the Region Around. 275 
 
 has a tone of sadness, and the sound of the waterfall steals 
 through the arches of the forest like the moaning voice 
 of a spirit Thus was it with me ; joyous as I had been 
 through the splendor of the day, I could not but feel a 
 tone of melancholy as I threaded the deepening shadows 
 of the woodlands. The road was steep and difficult, and 
 the thick boughs on' either side shut me in from every dis- 
 tant objeft. I reached, at length, the top of the mountain, 
 and had a glorious prospeft. The sun was sinking behind 
 a dark fringe of pines and rocks, leaving the vales in sol- 
 emn shadow. Here and there beams of refledted light 
 shot up from the depths below, from the rapid brook, or 
 the quiet pool. On every side the mountains bore their 
 burden of ancient woods : far as sight could reach, through 
 glens and craggy passes, and up to the mountain line, 
 melting away in misty distance, all was the old woody 
 wilderness. Here and there, piled on the overtopping 
 pinnacles, clouds bathed themselves in the last red sun- 
 beams. The chilly air of twilight had come before I could 
 leave this glorious solitude. Anxious to reach my intend- 
 ed resting-place for the night, I hastened onward with re- 
 doubled speed. My path led steeply down into a deep 
 valley ; the shades thickened at every step, and rendered 
 its windings more and more obscure. Several times I 
 hesitated, in doubt as to its course, and at length I lost it 
 entirely. A tornado had recently passed this way, and 
 laid prostrate almost every tree in its track of desolation. 
 How long I struggled through the entangled roots and 
 branches I could not tell, but they seemed interminable. 
 I went forward and back, to the right hand and to the left, 
 and at length was so bewildered as to be wholly unable to 
 decide which way I should go. 
 
 " The truth at last crept over me. / was lost — lost past 
 finding out or being found, at least for that night Fa- 
 
276 The Cats kill Mountains, 
 
 tigued, dripping with perspiration, disheartened, hungry, 
 and vexed, I sat down among the briers, with the resolu- 
 tion to wait there until the break of day. But the air 
 grew chilly, wild clouds hurried across the sky, and the 
 wind sounded hollow and forebodingly through the forest. 
 Ina£lion I could endure no longer. Again I tried to extri- 
 cate myself from the windfall, with a desperate energy. I 
 climbed and stooped, scrambled, crawled, and dodged. 
 Now a limb struck me in the face, and I fell backwards 
 among the brambles ; then I made a misstep, or a rotten 
 bough broke beneath my foot, and I plunged forward with 
 a crash. I was every moment in danger of breaking my 
 limbs, and putting out my eyes. At length, to my unspeak- 
 able delight, I struck into open ground, and advanced a 
 few yards with as much spirit as if the difficulty was all 
 over, and the end of my efforts was attained. This again 
 was of short duration. The ground was pitch black, and 
 I could see no more of its surface than a blind man. One 
 moment I fancied it was smooth where it was rough, or 
 started back as if from a hollow, where the surface was 
 aftually rising. It was dark as Egypt, and I stood still. 
 The next few moments were among the most strange and 
 critical in my life ; yet I was without the least sense of 
 danger, listening to the rapid beating of my heart, when 
 the sod gave way beneath my feet and I shot down an 
 almost perpendicular bank of earth, with a force and swift- 
 ness that outstripped the loose earth and stones that came 
 down after me. 
 
 " In vain did I throw out my arms with the hope of 
 grasping rock, root, or shrub ; everything I seized gave 
 way instantly, and joined in the general plunge. How 
 long was the earthy steep, or how high was the rock over 
 which, at last, I dashed headlong, I could not tell : — deep 
 water received me in its cold embrace. How I managed 
 
And the Region Aronnd. 2yj 
 
 to escape instant drowning, as I could never swim, I do 
 not know. An involuntary struggle brought me to the 
 surface, and clinched my hands to a rock which rose 
 above the water. Upon this rock I climbed, and lay for 
 awhile motionless and exhausted. Soon, however, I 
 was able to sit up and look around. Save a small spot of 
 blue sky, far, far overhead, with a single star, all was 
 dark as Erebus itself. My first thought was to sit out 
 the night, but my hands and feet began to ache with cold, 
 and my whole frame to shiver. The lone star was gone, 
 and the wind began to howl in the forest above me, in 
 token of coming rain. The trees moaned sullenly, and 
 chafed each other, and a large raindrop fell upon my face. 
 A heavy rain I knew would quickly swell the brooks to 
 raging torrents, and sweep me from the rock. Something 
 must soon be done to relieve me from danger. 
 
 " Taking firm hold of the rock, I carefully lowered myself 
 into the water, and found it beyond my depth. With the 
 greatest difficulty I regained my former situation. I then 
 tried the other side of the rock, and could touch the bot- 
 tom. Quitting my stronghold, I waded, breast deep, in 
 the water, until putting forth my hands, I laid them on a 
 wet solid wall of perpendicular rock, extending as far as 
 I could reach. My heart sank within me. My blood ran 
 with a chilly tingUng through my veins, a cold sweat 
 stood upon my forehead. 1 was imprisoned in a dungeon 
 of precipices, and the rain was falling in sheets. The 
 sickness of despair seized upon me. ' Here, then,' I 
 exclaimed aloud, ' I shall perish ; ' my friends will never 
 know what has become of me. 1 shouted, but to no pur- 
 pose ; my voice was instantly smothered by the roar of 
 the wind and the rain. Desperation seized upon me, and 
 I determined to rescue myself at every hazard. I first 
 held my hand in the water to learn the direflion of the 
 
278 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 current, in order to find some outlet, but the water was 
 in perfeiS repose. I then began to wade round the pool, 
 with one hand upon the rock. So deep was the water 
 that my progress was slow, and the pool seemed of great 
 extent. At length a rumbling murmur, as of a stream 
 running in .a cavern, fell distindlly on my ears, in a 
 momentary lull of the storm. Soon I was near ther outlet 
 of the dungeon lake, but what was jny terror when I 
 found the water tumbling into the mouth of a cavern, the 
 arch of which I could feel with my hands as I stood in 
 the current. But my fear was quickly gone, and I made 
 my way down among the crags and foam. I worked with 
 the energy of desperation, and found that the rapid was 
 more turbulent than deep, until I reached a smooth rocky 
 floor, over which the water flowed silently. Whither the 
 stream led, was a question which greatly excited me, but 
 there was no return, and no delay. The dash of my foot- 
 steps, as I waded forward, rang strangely through the 
 hollow cave, and I felt a wild and vivid pleasure as I 
 advanced. I shouted, sang, whistled, for the very horror 
 of the thing, and strode on courageously and strong. AH 
 at once the floor declined, and the water deepened. I 
 paused a moment, turned back, and struck my head 
 against the limb of a small drj» tree lodged by a freshet, 
 on a projedling crag of the cavern. 
 
 " I rolled off' the dry fragment of the tree into the water, 
 and pushed it on before me until the water was too deep 
 for wading, and then mounting it, committed myself to 
 the mercy of the current. At length the motion of my 
 odd bark was evident, and I heard the low murmur of 
 falling water. The stream became swift and whirling, 
 and I felt that the crisis of my fate was fast approaching. 
 The murmur had now increased to the dashing of a cas- 
 cade, and the stillness of the atmosphere was broken by 
 
And the Region Around. 279 
 
 gusts of misty wind. I floated on smoothly and swiftly ; 
 there was a sudden lighting up of the darkness, and my 
 bark struck. I sprang into the shallow rapid, and was 
 indeed on the verge of a waterfall, but to my great joy I 
 found myself in the open air. A few steps brought me to 
 a sandy bank, where I sat down in a state of mingled 
 excitement and gratitude, and rested till my stiff and 
 chilly limbs warned me to make some efforts to find a 
 dwelling. 
 
 " The tempest had passed over ; the moon, rising above 
 a distant peak, sent . her soft light through the shattered 
 clouds ; a faint blush in the east announced the dawn of 
 day, and the barking of a dog gave me delightful intelli- 
 gence of a house. Wet and weary I picked my way 
 through the brushwood, and soon came to a path which 
 led to the log-cabin of which the dog had given me the 
 signal. A warm fire, and venison steak came in quick suc- 
 cession, with many wonders and guesses by mine host, a 
 rough, but hospitable woodman. Among the most 
 remarkable was the wonder how I came to get into the 
 ' pot,' as he called the gulf where I had spend part of 
 the night." 
 
 cole's diary and letters. 
 
 After Cole's return from his first visit to Europe, we 
 find in his Diary allusions to the mountains, of which the 
 following has a not unnatural connexion with the narra- 
 tive above : 
 • "November 6, 1834. — Last night I dreamed that I was 
 descending a steep mountain, and had to cling to roots 
 and shrubs to aid me in the descent. One shrub, to- 
 wards which I had stretched my hand, attracted my ad- 
 miration by its beauty. I paused to gaze at it. As I 
 gazed, I perceived, to my horror, that it was a serpent. 
 
2 So The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 coiled in an attitude to spring upon me. How is this 
 dream like many of the realities of life ! Objefts the most 
 beautiful, and which we desire to clasp, are often fraught 
 with poison." [The poison (in the case of human objefts of 
 desire) of avarice, ambition, passion, pride, or discontent.] 
 February 25. — Speaking of storms, he thus writes : 
 
 " I sigh not for a stormless clime, 
 Where drowsy quiet ever dwells. 
 Where crystal brooks with endless chime 
 Flow winding through perennial dells. 
 
 " For storms bring beauty in their train : 
 The hills below tlie howling blast. 
 The woods all weeping in their rain, 
 How glorious when the storm is past 1 
 
 " So storms of ill, when pass'd away. 
 
 Leave in the soul serene delight ; 
 
 The gloom of the tempestuous day 
 
 But makes the following calm more bright." 
 
 " May 24. — Spring has come at last We have had a 
 few days truly delightful: the softest temperature, the 
 purest air, sunshine without burning, and breezes without 
 chilliness ; soft and cloudless skies. The mountains have 
 taken their pearly hue, and the streams leap and glitter as 
 though some crystal mountain was thawing beneath the 
 sun. The swelling hills, with their white and rosy blos- 
 soms, blush in the light of day, and the air is full of fra- 
 grance and music. Oh, that this could endure, and no 
 poison of the mind mingle in the cup." 
 
 RIP VAN winkle's DELL, THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE, AND 
 THE LAKES. 
 
 "July 6, 1835. — I li^^s just returned firom the mountain, 
 where I spent two of the happiest days I remember. 
 Upon the evening of the third of July, with a friend, I de- 
 
And the Region Around. 281 
 
 termined to spend our ' Fourth ' among the mountains. 
 Having waited in vain for a stage until nine in the even- 
 ing, we set out to walk. The night was fine, and the 
 moon gave a pleasant light, until it sank behind the piney 
 ridge of the North Mountain. Being thirsty, and finding 
 no spring at Lawrence's, where they were soundly asleep, 
 we walked three miles further, to Rip Van Winkle's Hol- 
 low. The long mile from the toll-gate to Rip's is very 
 steep. Thirst, however, gave wings to our feet, and we 
 reached there with parched mouths and wet skins. It 
 was midnight when we sat down by the stream which 
 comes leaping from the grand amphitheatre of wooded 
 mountains. There was a tin cup glittering by the rill, 
 placed there for the use of travelers, by some generous 
 soul, and we drank from it again and again, of the pure, 
 cold water, and the draughts were even more delicious 
 than those of Rip from the famous keg. It was a solemn 
 scene. Dark forests, rugged rocks, towering mountains 
 were around I's, and the breeze brought to our ears the 
 sound of waving trees, falling waters, and the clear chant 
 of the whip-poor-will. We did not, like old Rip, sleep 
 twenty years after our drinking, but reached the Mountain 
 House at one o'clock. 
 
 " After breakfast, we strolled down to the small lake, a 
 few hundred yards from the house. It has beautiful as 
 well as grand features — rich forests and mountains. The 
 lower lake is much larger and more beautiful than the 
 other. I pointed out a view which I once painted, which 
 was, I think, the first pi6lure ever painted of the lake, 
 which will hereafter be the subjeS of a thousand pencils. 
 Several years since I explored its shores for some dis- 
 tance, but thick woods and swampy grounds impeded me. 
 I enriched my sketch-book with studies of the fine dead 
 trees, which stand like speftres on the shores. As we 
 
282 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 made our way to an opening through the woods, which 
 disclosed the lake in a charming manner, we perceived a 
 rude boat amonjf the bushes, which was exaftly what we 
 wanted. We pushed oif and leaped into it, as if the 
 genius of the deep had placed it there for our special use. 
 Before us spread the virgin waters which the prow of the 
 sketcher had never yet curled, enfolded by the green 
 woods, whose venerable masses had never yet figured in 
 annifals, and overlooked by the stern mountain peaks 
 never beheld by Claude or Sa.lvator, nor subjefted to the 
 canvas by the innumerable dabblers in paint of all past 
 time. The painter of American scenery has indeed privi- 
 leges superior to any other. All nature is here new to 
 art No Tivolis, Ternis, Mount Blancs, Plinlimmons, 
 hackneyed and worn by the pencils of hundreds, but pri- 
 meval forests, virgin lakes and waterfalls, feasting his eye 
 with new delights, and filling his portfolio with their feat- 
 ures of beauty and magnificence, hallowed to his soul by 
 their freshness from the creation, for his own favored pencil. 
 "A little promontory, forming a fine foreground to a 
 charming view down the lake, invited us. We had some 
 fine perspective lines of forest on our right,' with many 
 dead trees standing near the shore, as if stripped for the 
 elements. These dead trees- are a striking feature in the 
 scenery of this lake, and exceedingly picturesque. Their 
 pale forms rise from the margin of the lake, stretching out 
 their contorted branches, and looking like so many genii 
 set to protect their sacred waters. On the left was an- 
 other reach of forest of various hues, and in the center of 
 the picture rose the distant Round Top, blue and well de- 
 fined, and cast its reflection on the lake, out to the point 
 where our boat swung like a thing in air. The head- 
 land was picturesque in the extreme. Apart from the dense 
 wood, a few birches and pines were grouped together 
 
And the Region Around. 283 
 
 in a rich mass, and one giant pine rose far above Ihe rest 
 On the extreme cape a few bushes of light green grew 
 diredlly from the water. In the midst of their sparkling 
 foliage stood two of the bare spedlral trees, with limbs 
 decorated with moss of silvery hue, and waving like gray 
 locks in the wind. We remained here long enough to 
 finish a sketch, and returned to our harbor to refit. 
 
 " After dinner we again launched our vessel for a longer 
 voyage of discovery. We now crossed the lake, paddling, 
 after the manner of Indians. Our boat glided beautifully 
 over the tranquil waters, and swept aside the yellow 
 water-lilies. In a strait between the mainland and a low 
 islet, where the water was very still, the woods were re- 
 flefted beautifully. I never saw such depth and briUiancy 
 in the refleftions. The dead trees on the margin added 
 by their silvery tints to the harmony of color, and their 
 images in the waters, which had a gentle undulation, ap- 
 peared like immense glittering serpents playing in the 
 deep. At every stroke of the oar some fresh objeft of 
 beauty would break upon us. We made several sketches, 
 and about sunset turned our prow. As we returned we 
 struck up the ' Canadian Boat Song,' and though our 
 music was rude, the woods answered in melodious echoes. 
 What a place for music by moonlight ! It would be ro- 
 mance itself ! This may be, and I may enjoy it." 
 
 AUTUMNAL SCENERY. 
 
 " October 7. — At this season, when nature puts on a garb 
 of splendor, when the days are brilliant and the sunsets 
 fuU of glory, there are moods of mind when I feel that 
 things are ill-timed and out of harmony. It is the saddest 
 season of the year. Blight is on all the vegetable world. 
 The woods are glowing with strange beauty, but it is the 
 hectic flush, that sure precursor of death. But there are 
 
284 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 days when I feel no such incongruity ; those days of 
 clouds without rain, when shadow subdues the pomp of 
 the earth, and the air crystalline, the woods repose in 
 sombre stillness, and the waters take the hills upon their 
 bosom, and veil them with transparent loveliness. 
 
 " Oftober 30. — The weather, for a month, has been truly 
 delightful, but this day above all. A pure, crystal-like 
 atmosphere has floated over the landscape, and the brown 
 of the leafless woods has been tinged with the purest 
 ultramarine. The sky is clear and cloudless, the air is 
 still but fresh. Oh, Nature ! to the loving eye, thou art 
 seldom without smiles.'' 
 
 SUMMER SCENE. 
 
 " August I, 1836. — This morning is as beautiful to me as 
 ever fell upon the earth. The air is cool and transparent, 
 the mountains clear and blue, the woods dense with juicy 
 foliage, and every leaf is glittering with the gem-like dew. 
 A robin is singing in the grove his never-closed song, and 
 a little wren in the cedar near the window is warbling 
 with all its might I took a walk last evening up the val- 
 ley of the Catskill, once my favorite walk. It is still 
 lovely. Man cannot remove its craggy hills, nor well 
 destroy its rock-rooted trees. The rapid stream will also 
 have its course." 
 
 durand's painting of rip van winkle. 
 
 In a letter to his friend Durand, the celebrated painter, 
 under date of January 4, 1838, Cole thus writes of the 
 painting of old Rip Van Winkle, by that artist : 
 
 " So Rip has toiled up the mountain with the liquor. I 
 should like to see the old Morpheus ; and though I may 
 not be blessed with a taste of the somnific cordial, I hope 
 to enjoy the sight of the flagon, when I may, perhaps, ex- 
 
And the Region Around. 285 
 
 claim, like the old woman in the fable, who, putting her 
 nose to the bunghole of an empty wine-cask, cried, ' Oh, 
 if thou art so delightful now, what must thou have been 
 when full ! ' But your flagon shall be enjoyed not by 
 nose, but eyes." 
 
 It would seem from the above that Durand was then 
 painting the pidture referred to, and had reported progress 
 to Cole by letter. February 12, Cole thus writes: "So 
 Rip is about finished. I long to see him." 
 
 Where is this painting ? It should be at the Mountain 
 House, with a copy of it in that of my friend and parish- 
 ioner, Mr. S , at the foot of the ravine up which Rip 
 
 Van Winkle passed to his long resting-place, on the airy 
 mound above. 
 
 KXCURSION TO HIGH PEAK. 
 
 Under date Oftober 9, 1 838, Cole describes the excursion 
 made by himself, with two gentlemen and several ladies: 
 
 '• The day was such an one as we would have chosen ; 
 one of our heavenly autumnal days, when the sun shines 
 blandly through a clear and cloudless sky, and the crystal 
 atmosphere casts a veil of beauty over the landscape, rich 
 with the loveliest tints. Sundry baskets, with good 
 things provided by the ladies, assured us that we should 
 not die of famine among the mountains. It was resolved 
 that we should sleep the next night on High Peak. The 
 party was in the highest spirits. We entered the Clove, 
 the fine pass where, on both sides, the mountains rise 
 thousands of feet The sun shone with golden splendor, 
 and the huge precipices above the village of Palensville 
 frowned over the valley like towers and battlements of 
 Cyclopean strufture. 
 
 " At the village our party got out to walk up the steep 
 road. Scattered in groups, we went loitering along, 
 
286 The Catskill MountainSj 
 
 sometimes stopping to pick a flower or a pebble, and to 
 gaze upon the precipices above us, or into the gulf below, 
 where flows the Cauterskill, with many a rush and bound, 
 as if it were making merry with its native rocks before it 
 left them for the quiet windings of the lower country. 
 We crossed a bridge which spans the stream under im- 
 pending clifls. This is a scene truly pi6turesque ; but we 
 could not linger to gaze upon it. We were hungry, and 
 dined at a charming waterfall near by. We ascended the 
 next day, and traversed some beautiful regions of moss, 
 where the sun, shining in gleams through the tall, dark, 
 spruce forest, upon the green velvety carpet, was ex- 
 tremely fine. It reminded me of the interior of some vast 
 Gothic pile, where the sun comes through narrow win- 
 dows in slender streams, and lights whatever it strikes 
 with a refulgence almost supernatural, amid the gloomy 
 shadows around. There was some hard clambering be- 
 fore we reached the summit, but the ladies did bravely. 
 We remained all night comfortably, and descended the 
 next morning, in health and spirits." 
 
 AMERICAN AND FOREIGN SCENERY. 
 
 In the autumn of 1841, during his second visit to 
 Europe, Cole thus writes : 
 
 " October 16. — We have just arrived at Neufchitel, and 
 were pursuing our way down the pass, the stream dashing 
 impetuously along a thousand feet below, when a view of 
 Lake Neufchitel, and the distant Alps rising beyond, open- 
 ed upon us. This was our first sight of the Alps, and a 
 grand one it was. Upon the highest summits clouds were 
 resting, while the level country was smiling in sunshine. 
 The scene of the lake and the distant mountains resem- 
 bled one from the upper part of the Plattekill Clove, where 
 you see the Hudson and the New England hills beyond." 
 
And the Region Around. 287 
 
 The Plattekill Clove is several miles south of the Cau- 
 terskill Clove, in the Catskill Mountains, vrith a wild 
 stream running through it, far below the road. 
 
 Again, in Oftober, Cole writes as follows : " I have 
 seen no pifture that represented the Alps truly, and 
 words cannot describe them. The imagination searches 
 in vain for comparisons. They are unearthly things, of 
 the texture of the moon as seen through a fine telescope, 
 beaming with a sort of liquid, silvery light — folds of 
 heaven's drapery fallen to the earth. After a short stay 
 at NeufchS-tel we proceeded towards Berne, the Jura 
 mountains still about us. How much they reminded me 
 of our own Catskills — their forms and forests. Scenes all 
 American sometimes burst upon us. 
 
 " You may fear, perhaps, that the wonderfiil scenery of 
 Switzerland will destroy my relish for our own. This 
 will not be the case. I know that when I return I shall 
 yet find beauty. Our scenery has its own peculiar charms, 
 and it is so connedled with my affe£lion that it will never 
 lose its power." 
 
 After reaching home Cole thus wrote to G. W. Greene, 
 Esq., United States Consul at Rome : 
 
 " Must I tell you that neither the Alps, nor the Apen- 
 nines, no, nor Etna itself, have dimmed in my eyes the 
 beauty of our own Catskills. It seems to me that I look 
 on American scenery, if it were possible, with increased 
 pleasure. It has its own peculiar charm — a something 
 not found elsewhere. I am content with nature, would 
 that I were with art. I wish I could transport you here 
 for a few days, to enjoy with me these magnificent moun- 
 tains. I know you would be willing to repay me in kind, 
 and take me out of Porta Pia to get a sight of Mont 
 Albano." 
 
288 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Cauterskill Falls.— View of them in Winter.— Column and Pillars of Ice. 
 —The Falls in 1865.— Excursion to Blackhead.— To South Peak.— Cole's 
 Last Visit to the Mountains. — His Death.— His Residence. — The Dutch 
 Dominie of the CatskiUs.— Its Author. — Its Hero and Leading Chara6ters. — 
 The Spectral Looking-glass. -^Mirage. — Fata Morgana. — Mirage at Sea. — 
 Fawn's Leap and Dog Hole. — Mountains in Autumn and Winter. — Indian 
 Summer.— Scottish Scenery. — The Falls in Winter. — Water Scenery of the 
 Mountains. 
 
 THE CAUTERSKILL FALLS. 
 
 THESE falls are two miles from the Catskill Moun- 
 tain House, by foot-paths through the woods, or 
 by a boat to the foot of the Southern Lake, of 
 which the Cauterskill Creek is the outlet; and thence 
 through the woods, or two and a half miles by a pleasant 
 mountain road, over which, during the summer, an omni- 
 bus runs twice a day. The falls are near the Laurel House, 
 kept by Mr. Schutt, a popular summer resort for visitors 
 and boarders. .The creek there passes over two preci- 
 pices, the first one hundred and eighty feet high, and the 
 second, a few rods below, is ninety feet. The deep gorge 
 Into which the water falls, and the wild ravine through 
 which it flows below the falls, are very grand and imposing. 
 At the upper falls the rock projedls eighty feet, so that one 
 can safely pass behind the sheet of falling water. There 
 is also a wild, rude mountain path, along the stream and 
 above it for three-fourths of a mile, to the road which 
 passes through the Cauterskill Clove. These remarks 
 have been made as explanatory of the following sketch, 
 by Cole, of 
 
C -oo,j^ra- — ^^ 
 
 CASCADE IN PLATTEKILL CLOVE. 
 
And the Region Around. 289 
 
 THE FALLS OF CAUTERSKILL IN WINTER. 
 
 " Winter, hoary, stern, and strong. 
 Sits the mountain crags among : 
 On his bleak and horrid throne. 
 Drift on drift the snow is piled. 
 Into forms grotesque and wild ; 
 Ice-ribbed precipices shed 
 Cold light round his grizzly head. 
 Clouds athwart his brows are bound. 
 Ever whirling round and round. 
 
 "March, 1843. — We have often heard that the Falls of 
 Cauterskill present an interesting speftacle in winter ; 
 
 and, February 27, a party of ladies invited Mrs. C and 
 
 myself to join in this tour, in search of the wintry pic- 
 turesque. Cloaks, moccasins, and mittens were in great 
 demand, and we were soon glancing over the creaking 
 snow, the sleigh-bells ringing in harmony with our spirits, 
 which were light and gay. 
 
 "A snow-storm near the mountains, which proved tran- 
 sitory, added to our enjoyment ; for, by partially veiling 
 the heights above us, it gave them a vast, visionary, and 
 spedtral appearance. The sun broke forth in mild splen- 
 dor just as we came in view of the Mountain House, on 
 the bleak crags, a few hundred feet above us. Leaving 
 the house to the left, we crossed the lesser of the two 
 lakes. From its level breast, now covered with snow, the 
 mountains rose in desolate grandeur, their steep sides 
 bristling with bare trees, or clad in sturdy evergreens. 
 Here and there was to be seen a silvery birch, so pale and 
 wan that one might readily imagine that it drew its aliment 
 from the snow around its roots. The Clove Valley, the 
 lofty range of the High Peak and Round Top, which rise 
 beyond, as seen from the road between the house and the 
 falls, are, in summer, grand objefts ; but winter had given 
 them a sterner charafler. The mountains seemed more 
 19 
 
290 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 precipitous, and the forms that inclosed their sides more 
 clearly defined. The projedling mounds, the rocky terraces, 
 the shaggy clefts, down which the courses of the torrents 
 could be traced by the gleaming ice, were exposed in the 
 leafless forests and clear air of winter, while along the 
 grizzly peaks the snow was driving rapidly. There is 
 beauty, there is sublimity in the wintry aspeft of the moun- 
 tains, but their beauty is touched with melancholy, and 
 their sublimity has a dreary tone. 
 
 " Before speaking of the Falls as arrayed in wintry garb, 
 I will give a hasty sketch of their appearance in summer. 
 
 " There is a deep gorge in the midst of the loftiest 
 Catskills, which is terminated at its upper end by a 
 mighty wall of rock. As the spectator approaches from 
 below, he sees its craggy and impending front rising to 
 the height of three hundred feet. This huge rampart is 
 semicircular. From the centre of the more distant or 
 middle part of the semicircle, like a gush of living light 
 from heaven, the catarafb leaps, and foaming into feathery 
 spray, descends into a rocky basin one hundred and 
 eighty feet below. Thence the water flows through a 
 wild rocky pass of several rods, and falls over another 
 rock ninety feet high ; and then, struggling and foaming 
 through the shattered fragments of the mountains, and 
 shadowed by fantastic trees, it plunges into the gloomy 
 depths of the valley below. The stream is small, except 
 when swollen by summer freshets, or by the rains and 
 melted snows of spring and autumn ; yet a thing of life 
 and motion, it is sufficient at all times to give expression 
 to the scene, which is one of savage and silent grandeur. 
 But its semicircular cavern, or gallery, is perhaps the most 
 remarkable feature of the scene. This has been formed 
 in the wall of rock by the gradual crumbling away of a 
 narrow stratum of soft shell that lies beneath gray rocks 
 
And the Region Around. 291 
 
 6f the hardest texture. The upper rock projedts some 
 eighty feet, and forms a stupendous canopy, over which 
 the cataraft shoots. Underneath it, if the ground was 
 level, thousands of men might stand. A narrow path, 
 about twenty feet above the basin of the waterfall, leads 
 through the depth of this arched gallery, which is about 
 five hundred feet long. 
 
 " It is a singular, a wonderful scene, whether viewed 
 from above, where the stream leaps into the tremendous 
 gulf scooped into the very heart of the huge mountain, or 
 as seen from below the second fall ; the impending crags, 
 the shadowy depth of the cavern, across which darts the 
 cataraft, broken into fleecy forms and tossed and swayed 
 hither and thither by the wayward wind ; the sound of 
 the water, now falling upon the ear in a loud roar, and 
 now in fitful lower tones ; the lonely voice, the solitary 
 song of the valley. 
 
 " To visit the scene in winter, is a privilege permitted to 
 but few ; and to visit it this winter, when the spe£tacle is 
 more than usually magnificent, and, as the hunters say, 
 ' more complete than has been known for thirty years,' 
 is, indeed, worthy of a long pilgrimage. What a contrast 
 to its appearance in summer ! No leafy woods, no blos- 
 soms glittering in the sun, rejoice upon the steeps around. 
 
 " ' Hoary Winter 
 O'er forests wide has laid his hand^ 
 And they are bare — 
 They move and moan, a spe<5bal band 
 Struck by despair.' " 
 
 There are overhanging rocks and the dark-browed cav- 
 ern, but where the spangled catara£l fell stands a gigantic 
 tower of ice, reaching from the basin of the waterfall to 
 the very summit of the crags. From the jutting rocks that 
 form the canopy of which I have spoken, hang festoons 
 
292 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 of glittering icicles. Not a drop of water, not a gush of 
 spray is to be seen. No sound of many waters strilces the 
 ear, not even as of a gurgling rivulet or trickling rill. All is 
 silent and motionless as death ; and did not the curious eye 
 perceive, through two window-like spaces of clear ice, the 
 falling water, one might believe that all was bound in icy 
 fetters. But there falls the cataraft, not bound but 
 shielded, as a thing too delicate for the frosts of winter to 
 blow upon. 
 
 "It falls, too, as in summer, broken into myriads of dia- 
 monds, which group themselves, as they descend, into 
 wedge-like forms, like wild-fowls when traversing the blue 
 air. This tower, or perforated column of ice, one hundred 
 and eighty feet high, rests on a field of snow-covered ice, 
 spread over the basin and rocky platform, that in some 
 places is broken into miniature glaciers. Near the foot it 
 is more than thirty feet in diameter, but is somewhat nar- 
 rower above. It is in general of a milk-white color, and 
 curiously embossed with rich and fantastic ornaments. 
 About its dome are numerous dome-like forms, supported 
 by groups of icicles. In other parts may be seen falling 
 strands of flowers, each flower ruffled by the breeze. These 
 were of the most transparent ice. This curious frostwork 
 reminded me of the tracery and icicle-like ornament fre- 
 quent in Saracenic architeilure, and I have no doubt that 
 nature suggested such ornament to the architeftas the most 
 fitting for halls wherever flowing fountains cooled the 
 sultry air. Here and there, suspended from the projefting 
 rocks that form the eaves of the great gallery, are groups 
 and ranks of icicles of every variety of size and number. 
 Some of them are twenty or thirty feet in length. Spark- 
 ling in the sunlight, they form a magnificent fringe. 
 
 " The scene is striking from many points of view, but 
 one seemed superior to the rest. Near by, and overhead, 
 
And the Region Around. 293 
 
 hung a broad festoon of icicles. A little further on, an- 
 other cluster of great size, grouped with the columns all in 
 full sunlight, contrasting finely with the sombre cavern be- 
 hind. The icicles in this group appear to have been 
 broken off midway some time ago, and from their trun- 
 cated ends numerous smaller icicles depend. They look 
 like gorgeous chandeliers, or the richest pendants of a 
 Gothic cathedral, wrought in crystal. 
 
 " Beyond the icicles and the column is seen a cluster of 
 lesser columns and icicles, and columns of pure cerulean 
 color, and then come the broken rocks and woods. The 
 icy spears, the majestic tower, the impending rocks above, 
 the wild valley below, with its contorted trees, the lofty 
 mountains towering in the distance, compose a wild and 
 wondrous scene, where the Ice King 
 
 ' Builds in the starlight clear and cold, 
 
 A palace of ice where the torrent fells ; 
 With turret, and arch, and fretwork feir, 
 And pillars blue as the summer air.' 
 
 We left the place with lingering steps and real regret, for 
 in all probability we were never to see these wintry glories 
 again. The Royal Architect builds but unstable struc- 
 tures, which, like worldly virtues, quickly vanish in the 
 full light and fiery trial. 
 
 " It may be asked, by the curious, how the gigantic cylin- 
 der of ice is formed round the waterfall. The question is 
 easily answered. The spray first freezes in a circle round 
 the foot of the fall, and as long as the frosts continue this 
 circular wall keeps rising, until it reaches the summit of 
 the cataraft — as is the case this winter — though ordinarily 
 the column rises only part of the way up. Even when 
 imperfedlly formed, it must be strange to see the water 
 shoot into a hollow tube of ice, fifty or one hundred feet 
 
294 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 high ; and I have no doubt it would amply repay one for 
 the fatigue and exposure to which he might be subje6led 
 in his visit." 
 
 The author, or rather the compiler, of this work, visited 
 the Cauterskill Falls late in the winter of 1865, and found 
 a hollow cone of ice reaching to the top of the falls, with 
 here and there, near the base, a few openings as air-holes 
 or ventilators ; while the whole of the stream below, with 
 the lower falls, was also encased in ice. The icicles from 
 above, and the columns of ice below, formed by the water 
 slowly dripping from the lofty precipices on either side of 
 the falls, were also on a scale of gigantic grandeur, and 
 more than royal magnificence and splendor ; the ice, 
 with the light which then shone upon it, having a rich, 
 mellow, alabaster lustre, and a golden or amber tint and 
 radiance. Late in February, or early in March, is the 
 time to see, to the best advantage, the winter glories of the 
 mountains and the falls. 
 
 Blackhead, spoken of below, is a high, steep, thickly- 
 wooded, and almost overhanging mountain-peak, on the 
 eastern side of the range, some five or six miles north of 
 the Mountain House. Its base can be reached by way of 
 the valley through which flows the stream, near the foot 
 of the eastern slope of the mountains. 
 
 EXCURSION TO BLACKHEAD. 
 
 " An excursion to Blackhead, or the Dome Mountain, 
 as Cole loved to call it, one of the finest portions of the 
 Catskills, must always continue to be, both to the writer 
 and the painter, one of the luminous points of the past. 
 Our ride in the morning, over the finely-broken interven- 
 ing country, through the fresh air, sweetly scented with 
 millions of flowers in the fields and along the roadside, 
 
And the Region Around. 295 
 
 the likeness of which we see in many of Cole's rich pic- 
 tures, was one of those rides the very memory of which 
 is beautiful and fragrant. At noon, thirsty and panting 
 on the moss beneath the black fir-trees of the summit, we 
 gazed, and listened, and grew cool and rested. Then fol- 
 lowed the descent, the plunge down the wooded steeps, 
 and the laughable mishaps from slips upon the slant, wet 
 rocks, and trips among the roots, vines, and brushwood ; 
 all concluding with a pensive return homeward in the 
 dark, loaded with blooming boughs, gathered while yet the 
 golden rays of the sun were upon their crimson and snowy 
 clusters." 
 
 EXCURSION TO SOUTH PEAK. 
 
 This mountain, more commonly called High Peak, and 
 Round Top, already spoken of, are near each other, some 
 five miles south-west of the Mountain House, in the range 
 of lofty heights which form the southern wall of the Cau- 
 terskill Clove, extending far to the west beyond it, and 
 crossed by the deep mountain gorge or ravine known as 
 Stony Clove, on the almost perpendicular sides of which 
 dark-green shrubs and trees thickly grow, as if suspended 
 there by magnetism, or by some miraculous power ; and 
 through which flows a rapid, mountain stream, in which, 
 each year, trout by hundreds and thousands are caught. 
 Pine Orchard, where the Mountain House stands, is three 
 thousand feet above tide-water ; Round. Top is three thou- 
 sand seven hundred and eighteen feet high ; and High 
 Peak three thousand eight hundred and four — or eighty- 
 six feet higher than Round Top. The biographer of Cole 
 speaks of High Peak as perhaps the finest for views in 
 the whole range of the Catskills. Cole made his excursion 
 there in two days, with a party of twelve, the larger part of 
 whom were ladies. He thus describes the manner in which 
 the night was spent upon the summit of the mountain : 
 
296 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 " Evening now closed around us. The red flame shot 
 up its long tongue with a loud crackling, when the gummy 
 foliage of the evergreen fir was sportively thrown upon 
 the fire, and the smoke rolled away in luminous billows 
 over the tree-tops, waving to and fro in the fresh night- 
 breeze, and shining in the pale, green light. The heavens, 
 even, in their starry blue, seemed awfully dark, immeasur- 
 ably deep. The trees near us stood out in strong relief 
 from the broad gloom of the great mountain forest, and 
 our house of boughs, all glowing with a flood of light, 
 except in its dark recesses, presented a scene of singular 
 beauty. Within, reclining forms were dimly seen ; while 
 in front, figures in grotesque costumes of shawl and blan- 
 ket, both sitting and standing, caught the vivid brightness 
 on their faces and vestments. Every light was clear, every 
 shadow mingled with the darkness of the surrounding 
 woods, giving a unity of effefl that does not exist by day. 
 Every form thus united with the great shadow of the wil- 
 derness became, with trees and grass, part of the moun- 
 tain top. 
 
 " Then came the hours of repose. One by one we sank 
 down upon the fragrant branches of fir, the ladies in the 
 more retired part, the gendemen on the outer edge of the 
 bough-tent — one in a shawl or cloak, another in his blan- 
 ket, and I in my brown monk's-dress. The weary sleep- 
 ers breathed heavily ; the breeze at one time softly whis- 
 pering overhead, at another rushing through the forest-tops 
 with a fitful, melancholy roar ; now afar off like the sea- 
 surf, and now making the branches swing about in the 
 dim light of our declining fire. Solemn, awful midnight ! 
 A thousand fancies came thronging on my mind. When 
 the gray dawn broke in mildly, a solitary robin, on the 
 mountain-side below us, was warbling his morning hymn. 
 I shall never forget the quiet sorrow with which, in the 
 
And the Region Around. 297 
 
 course of the forenoon, we bade farewell to South Peak, 
 and slowly took our way down the mountain." 
 
 Cole's last visit to the mountains, arrayed as they were 
 in the colors of Oftober, occupied two days. He went to 
 the top of the huge precipice on the side of South Peak, 
 a point visible from his house, at a distance of some twenty 
 miles, and commanding a wonderful prospeft. From this 
 dizzy crag he took a long and silent look up and down 
 the beloved " Valley of the Hudson," which for near a quar- 
 ter of a century had been the chosen and ever-cherished 
 home of his heart's aflFeftion and delight, so that he could, 
 with the poet, truly say, ♦ 
 
 " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
 My heart, untiaveled, fondly turns to thee " 
 
 He had gazed upon this valley from other points un- 
 numbered times, alone, and with such companions as 
 Bryant, Durand, Ver Bryck, and Huntington. It had 
 filled his heart for years. This was his last look. A few 
 hundred feet below, by a rivulet, expanding into a small 
 glassy pool, bordered with moss, and roofed with the gay 
 foliage of the month, he took his final mountain repast 
 
 Soon after this, at his beautiful home in Catskill, he 
 died, at the age of forty-seven years. Calm and strong in 
 Christian faith and hope, he closed his eyes on earth, to 
 open the spirit's eye on brighter, fairer worlds above. 
 
 His residence, still occupied by his family, and his stu- 
 dio, with " The Cross and the World," his last unfinished 
 painting in it, are a short distance beyond the beautiful 
 cemetery which crowns the hill above the village of Cats- 
 kill. In full view in front is the whole eastern slope of 
 the mountains, around are beautiful plants and flowers, 
 fruit and shade trees, and in the rear a lofty range of 
 primeval forest trees, covering lovely, sloping grounds. 
 
298 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 for the fourth of a mile or more, down to the banks of 
 the Hudson. 
 
 THE DUTCH DOMINIE OF THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 A Romance, partly historical, with the title above, was 
 published in New York in 1861. Its author was the Rev. 
 Dr. Murdoch, a native of Scotland, and educated there, 
 though he preached for some time in Canada. He was 
 pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church, in the village of 
 Catskill, from 1842 until 1851, when his house and its 
 contents, including his library, were burned, and the 
 church in which he preached. He died a few years 
 since, at Elmira, New York, where he was, from the time 
 of his leaving Catskill, a pastor in the Presbyterian 
 Church. He was a man of talents, of a vigorous, adlive, 
 cultivated mind, and a lively imagination, with sprightly 
 social qualities, and a pleasant vein of wit and humor. 
 
 The hero of the Doctor's romance was Dominie 
 Schuneman, who during a part of the last century was 
 the pastor of the Dutch churches in Leeds and Coxsackie, 
 including Catskill and the region around — a man of power 
 in his day. His son, Hon. Martin G. Schuneman, a giant 
 in size, a man of great force and energy of charafter, was 
 member of Congress from this Distrift in 1806 and 1807 
 and his children are still living in Leeds. The Abeels, 
 of whose captivity among the Indians in early times an 
 account is given in this work, with Frederick Saxe^ the 
 famous bear-hunter, who was a worthy and useful elder 
 in the Dutch church in Kiskatom, Cornelius Wynkoop, 
 in the same parish, and others, have also a prominent 
 place in the Doctor's book. 
 
 The work in question, though somewhat disconnefled 
 and incoherent in its different parts, and not alw^s ob- 
 serving the unities of time and place, has still passages 
 
A7id the Region Around. 299 
 
 and chapters of much vividness and power, especially in 
 its descriptions of natural scenery and the adtion and 
 movements of the elements, in conneftion with storms 
 and other phenomena among the mountains. Dr. Mur- 
 doch also compiled the pamphlet entitled " The Catskill 
 Mountains, as described by Irving, Cooper, Bryant, and 
 others," which has been circulated for several years in 
 this region, and extrafts from which will be found in this 
 work. 
 
 We here first quote from Dr. Murdoch's book his de- 
 scription of what he calls 
 
 " THE SPECTRAL LOOKING-GLASS." 
 
 By this he means what is called Mi-rage, which Web- 
 ster defines as " an optical delusion, arising from an un- 
 equal refradlion in the lower strata of the atmosphere, 
 causing remote objedls to be seen double, as if reflefted 
 in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air. It is 
 frequently seen in sandy deserts, presenting the appear- 
 ance of water. The Fata Morgana and Looming are spe- 
 cies of mirage." 
 
 Fata Morgana is a phenomenon which occurs at Reg- 
 gio, in Italy, on the Straits of Messina, where, by atmos- 
 pheric refra£lion, multiplied images of the objefts on the 
 shore around are seen in the air, over the surface of the 
 sea. Looming is a magnifying and bringing near to one, 
 in appearance, large and distant objefts. The writer 
 once saw this in a striking manner among the White 
 Mountains, in New Hampshire, before a storm. In pass- 
 ing out of the harbor of Portland, Maine, too, in a steam- 
 boat, of a misty morning, many years since, the more than 
 three hundred islands in the bay were seen by him, invert- 
 ed in the air, the lowest point of the image touching the 
 highest part of the island below. When sailing on the 
 
300 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Mediterranean Sea, also, he once saw distinftly the im- 
 age of a large ship high up in the clouds. In these cases, 
 the moist air or mist a£ls as a mirror, so that at times 
 persons see their own images reflected back to them, 
 greatly enlarged, as in the case described below. 
 
 Dr. Murdoch, in a note on what follows, thus writes : 
 " The Fata Morgana, seen so remarkably on the Straits 
 of Messina, has been observed on the Catskills to per- 
 feftioB. The vision, as described in the text, was seen 
 from the balcony of the Mountain House in 1845.' We 
 now come to the extrafl from " The Dutch Dominie of the 
 Catskills " : 
 
 "At this point of their conference a movement was 
 observed among the different groups, as if some objeft of 
 interest had arisen. The wind rose from the north, lifting 
 up the black cloud that had hung like a heavy sheet behind 
 them, and was rolling it up like a scroll, so that the sun 
 was coming out in a clear sky west of the mountain. On 
 the flat rock were all the persons known to us, standing 
 together on the verge of the cliff. When their attention 
 was properly fixed, Teunis saw, for the first time, what he 
 had heard the old hunters tell of, the Geest Walk Waren 
 — the Spirit of the Mist — seen only at rare times in these 
 regions. There were huge masses of vapor passing in 
 different strata, some of which were denser than others. 
 That which was nearest to them was thin and transparent, 
 reflefting all the objefts which stood between it and the 
 light thrown upon it from the clearer sky behind. It was 
 indeed a moving mirror that slowly passed, as a panorama 
 is unrolled before a company of speflators. There was, 
 however, this difference between nature and art : the faces 
 and forms of the persons looking on were the figures in 
 the picture before them, taken instantly, and held up to 
 them. Every one saw himself distinctly, and his nearest 
 
And the Region Around. 301 
 
 neighbor, only less vividly drawn. The whole was more 
 like an artist's dream than a reality. It seemed as if they 
 could have walked out and touched the pi6lure, till a mo- 
 ment's refleflion made them sensible that the whole was 
 but a shadow. Teunis gazed first at his own outline, then 
 on the tall, straight form of the Indian, who stood immova- 
 ble. Behind the front group he saw those who had lain 
 down on the laurel bed, and beside them several starting 
 up in evident alarm. Others were rushing forward with 
 curious and hasty looks of wonder at the strange sight ; 
 and around the place where hemlock branches had been 
 woven into tents, some of the Indians were stooping, like 
 Arabs when an alarm has been given caused by the 
 mirage, when it has lifted the forms of an enemy above 
 the level of their sandy plains. Scarcely one of those 
 present had seen the wonder before, and those who had 
 heard of it were more inclined to regard it as a vision of a 
 frightened imagination than a fa£l. 
 
 " Even the educated Englishman, Clifford, though affe(5t- 
 ing, through philosophy, a superiority to those around 
 him, could not help showing an intense eagerness to see 
 all to the close. He had read of such things among the 
 Alpine heights, and could explain them, but his whole soul 
 was for the moment absorbed in the sense of sight. In- 
 deed, all were more eager to see than to speak, except one 
 man, a Scotch Highlander, who, knowing of these sights 
 in his own country, was anxious to tell of the famous 
 spearman of Ben Cruachan, who saw, in the mists of the 
 hills, the warning to Lochiel. 
 
 " The whole assemblage were awakened to the intensest 
 eagerness. All were under an undefined feeling of super- 
 stition, as if what they saw was like the writing on the 
 wall which -the profane king saw, ominous of his own 
 doom. The sheet-cloud went slowly by, figure after figure 
 
302 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 melting into thin air. It was affefting to hear each one 
 tell, afterwards, how he felt an internal shivering as he 
 saw his own body dissolving, before his eyes, into nothing. 
 " Soon the whole east was covered with the same black 
 cloud as before, while the thin, white vapor, which had 
 served as a refleftor, was wheeled round to the south and 
 settled against the sides of the hill, which rises bluffly, a 
 few hundred feet higher than Flat Rock. There again it 
 became a new mirror, but far different from what it was 
 before. Each one, instead of himself, saw his nearest 
 neighbor to the right of him. Fear and superstition gave 
 place to curiosity, and then to frolic and fun. One, who 
 had been the most cowardly of the crew, gave a caper in 
 the air, which threw others into the same absurd attitudes, 
 until art hundred more were seen dancing around and 
 hallooing like madmen. Solemnly and silently the figures 
 in the cloud mocked the fools outside." 
 
 THE fawn's leap, OR DOG HOLE. 
 
 This singularly wild and romantic gorge and whirlpool, 
 among the rocks, is a little above the lower bridge in the 
 Cauterskill Clove, where there is a beautiful cascade, with 
 a lofty, massive wall of rock overhanging it. A rude, nar- 
 row bridge, by which wood is brought over the stream from 
 the mountains above, crosses it just below the Dog Hole, 
 or Dog Pool, as Dr. Murdoch calls it. He thus speaks of it : 
 
 " It lies in a narrow ravine, below the rocks where the 
 Cauterskill comes down and falls over the shelf into a 
 basin, an hundred feet lower down. The whole is sur. 
 rounded and overhung by trees and shrubs common to the 
 region, and forms an amphitheatre of wildness and beauty 
 seldom surpassed. It is not so capacious as the falls near 
 Pine Orchard, but has points of interest which surpass 
 even that famous spot. 
 
And the Region Around. 303 
 
 "'Do you see how that stream leaps down among the 
 rocks ? Did you ever see a lighter foot than that is, trust- 
 ing to the air so confidently ? ' 
 
 " ' No, never ; and yet I have seen airy creatures who 
 seemed more the creations of fancy than of reality. 
 
 " ' But how beautifully the whole stream loses itself in 
 the haze which covers it with a veil thinner than the light- 
 est gossamer.' 
 
 " ' And there, again, see how it trips away down yonder, 
 coming out of its misty curtains, fresh and fair, like a child 
 running to its mother's arms.' 
 
 " ' The stream we are watching is dealt kindly by, for it 
 is let down, step by step, in a far, roundabout way. You 
 saw the two ponds where we were yesterday. They form 
 the fountain head. About two miles below, the waters 
 take a far higher leap than they do here. The further 
 down it goes, the fall is less and less, till it becomes as 
 smooth as youi- cheek, and as quiet as your old nurse's 
 voice, when she found you asleep in your cradle.' 
 
 " ' The Dominie says that his young folks go off like the 
 Cauterskill up here, and end like the quiet Catskill, in 
 their old age, joining the great river rolling into the sea.' " 
 
 HIGH PEAK — THE MOUNTAINS IN AUTUMN AND IN 
 WINTER. 
 
 " ' Let ns walk, and please not to turn around till I tell 
 you, for 1 want to point to what I think is worth seeing.' 
 When they had advanced about half a mile above the 
 fall, Elsie said, ' Now turn and look.' 
 
 " The sight was so overwhelming that Margaret was 
 for a few moments in speechless rapture. High Peak, 
 that majestic pyramid, stood out in bold relief against the 
 southern sky, surrounded by numerous summits, great 
 and small, among which he rose, like a king attended by 
 
304 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 his suite, who looked up. to his crown with awe and de- 
 light. The Oflober sun had spread a mysterious haze 
 over the whole scene, which expanded rather than hid its 
 greatness. 
 
 " ' What do you see there ? ' said the mountain damsel, 
 proud of her own region. 
 
 " ' My head is dizzy. Let me alone till I get over my 
 bewilderment, and be able to comprehend what is before 
 me. Oh ! what a stage is there for superior beings to 
 descend upon and see the aflions of puny mortals. Elsie, 
 have you ever known any one to ascend that height ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, yes ; I have been up there myself more than once. 
 But it helps to humble one. I never feel myself so small 
 as when I stand on that eminence and think what a mote 
 I am. And yet I have felt my soul expanding above it 
 all when I knew that I was an immortal creature, re- 
 deemed by the Son of God.' 
 
 " ' That is like mounting from the foot of Jacob's Ladder 
 to the top of it at a bound. When I was in the city of 
 Rome they took me into the great church there, called 
 St. Peter's, and do you know that when one beside me 
 said he felt himself so small that he could sink, I said, 
 presumptuous thing that I was, ' My heart swells so that 
 I fill all this house.' You must have felt up there as I did 
 in Rome. 
 
 " ' Four times a year. Miss Clinton, do I come up to this 
 place and look up ; in June, when everything is in the 
 greenest lustre ; in August, when all is so rich and full ; 
 in Oftober, when those various colors are painted by the 
 hand of Nature ; and again in winter. 
 
 " ' Now I find out the cause of my confusion, Elsie ; 
 that wondrous variety of colors. This is what is called 
 the Fall, and Indian Summer, when the foliage changes. 
 It is a new thing to my EngHsh eyes.' 
 
And the Region Around. 305 
 
 "'And have you no Fall, no Indian Summer, in Eng- 
 land ? ' said the amazed girl. ' No Fall I No Indian Sum- 
 mer ! What, then, have you ? ' 
 
 " ' England is always green, like your June, Elsie ; but 
 what would they give for one glimpse of that mountain, 
 clad in trees to the very crown, and every one of these 
 trees in different colors, from the richest purple to the 
 brightest yellow, and the whole robe intermingled with 
 pale and deep green. But tell me what shrub is that cov- 
 ering all the ground so darkly red ? ' 
 
 " ' We call that the laurel, which is spread all over the 
 mountains as you see it beneath our feet. But look, 
 here is my favorite flower at this time of year — the sumach. 
 Let me put it in your hair for a feather — and tell me if 
 ever the Queen of England had one so rich "i " 
 
 " ' Oh, what deep and pure scarlet ! Never, never 
 would they believe me, were I to tell of it just as I see it 
 in your hands. When do you call the mountain in its 
 grandest array ? I cannot imagine anything beyond what 
 I am looking at just now. I have seen Mont Blanc, but 
 there was nothing on it save the awful whitenes.s, which 
 blinds and awes the spirit.' 
 
 " ' Miss Clinton, to my mind the sublimest scene of these 
 heights is to be seen in the white winter. The loneliness 
 pleases me so that I then have a reverence for High Peak 
 that I never feel at any other season. All then is so still 
 that I can hear my heart beating. It is only at rare times 
 that its real grandeur appears. One day, a few years ago, 
 in January, I was here. There had been a thaw and a 
 heavy rain for a whole day, which beat upon the snow 
 without melting it, making it so hard that one could walk 
 upon it without sinking. Towards midnight the wind 
 came around suddenly to the north-west, and blew one of 
 the coldest blasts I ever knew. The rain froze as it fell, 
 20 
 
3o6 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 so that not a tree, a twig, nor a leaf but hung in icicles, 
 clear as crystal. I came here when the sun was at the 
 highest, and of all the sights that mortal eye ever beheld, 
 it seems to me still that one surpassed them all. The 
 mountain was one lump of glass, with not one dark spot 
 on the whole. The trees all hung in crystals. The hard 
 Snow was frozen, and glittering to the very mountain's 
 top. It was one vast diamonri. perfeftly reflefling the 
 different colors of the rainbow. I looked, but my eyes so 
 filled with tears that I turned away, for I was ashamed to 
 be seen weeping at what no one seemed to care for but 
 myself.' " 
 
 SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SCENERY COMPARED. 
 
 " ' How would that valley down there compare with the 
 scenery of Scotland ? You have been up here, of course, 
 in the daytime, and can judge.' 
 
 "' Oh, aye, sir-; I have been up here hunting with the 
 lads, and, to be honest, I think that the size of the country 
 takes away from the feehng of pleasure I used to have 
 when I looked down from a Scottish mountain.' 
 
 " ' But does not that make the sublimity all the more, if 
 there be a sufficient variety of hill and dale, wood and 
 water interspersed ? And then, surely the forest, rising 
 up as this does, to the very mountain tops, must be more 
 beautiful at all times of the year than the bare furze on the 
 Scottish mountains.' 
 
 " ' Heather, sir ; heather is the word. There is music 
 in the very sound of it, and, as to the sight, I have seen 
 nothing here that can compare with the bloom of the 
 heather.' 
 
 " ' Keeping out of view the associations of the Scottish 
 scenery, where, to your mind, lies the difference between 
 it and what we see around us ? ' 
 
And the Region Around. 307 
 
 " ' I think, sir, that the chief difference between what we 
 see here, and that of Scottish mountains and glens, lies 
 in the fa<5l that you can take in all Ben Lomond and the 
 loch below, with the islands down to Dumbarton, and on 
 to Tintock-top, at a glance, and it's all grand ; but here, 
 man, everything is on such a grand scale, I cannot com- 
 prehend it My head gets so dizzy that I feel as if my 
 thoughts had turned into bumble-bees. Do you not feel 
 something like it yourself, sir ?' 
 
 " ' I confess that my head is turned, after all that I have 
 seen and heard this day ; but, from what you say, there 
 must be a fine uncultivated field for the future poet, in 
 the very greatness and mistiness which meet in the far- 
 off horizon, where the other mountain tops just peer 
 through the clouds, and with that noble river, too, running 
 through the centre, where the forests are ever living and 
 moving.' 
 
 " ' You are very eloquent on what you have never seen 
 yet, but even your description does not come half way up 
 to it ; and as you say yourself, it will require some poet 
 like Allan Ramsay to sing about it.' " 
 
 THE CAUTERSKILL FALLS IN WINTER. 
 
 " His knowledge of the route soon brought him to the 
 Cauterskill Falls, the place of rendezvous. The solitude, 
 to minds like theirs, under the most painful suspense, was 
 as much as they could bear. The ever-running water be- 
 low, and the constant fall from above, affefting the two 
 senses, hearing and sight, with the same monotonous din, 
 and the same succession of airy spirits coming constantly 
 through the narrow passage, and then leaping over into 
 the cloud formed by their predecessors, produced a strange 
 loneliness in their watching. And yet, as no man feels 
 himself alone if a child be playing near him, so these men, 
 
3o8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 when they saw that playful stream tripping down to the 
 brink and then stepping off with ease, felt that they had 
 communion with the spirit of the region. 
 
 " ' This is more than I bargained for,' said Bertram. ' I 
 expefted to see a wild country along the shores of the 
 river, but not this precious gem of the mountains.' 
 
 " ' First impressions are always the most effeftive ; but 
 I have been here when I felt the influence of the scene 
 far more than at present' 
 
 " ' Still, Captain, you cannot help admiring the grandeur 
 of the whole amphitheatre as your eye ranges around in 
 search of some single objeft on which to rest, till you fix 
 it on that watery spirit which leaps from the shelving plat- 
 form into the capacious halls beneath. Indeed, when I 
 look again, I can imagine so many winged spirits, sent 
 forth from on high, meeting again below, as in airy sport, 
 first in that dark, mysterious gulf, from which they recoil, 
 as a place of punishment, to rise where the sunbeams 
 shine upon them, forming the whole into a glorious crown, 
 fit for the heads of seraphim. 
 
 " ' I will tell you what I once saw here. It was winter ; 
 the snow all crusted over so that it would bear man or 
 beast. After a hard run, we had taken a fox, near the 
 foot of the hill there. By the advice of Frederick Saxe, 
 the bear-hunter, we went down to see the falls frozen. We 
 came up from the deep ravine below, and suddenly saw 
 what we were quite at a loss to understand, as we stood 
 speechless before it It was a high tower, reaching from 
 the bottom to the top of that lofty rock jutting oiit there, 
 pure white, intermingled with glittering crystals. The 
 stillness of the grave was around us. Some one whis- 
 pered in my ear, ' The year is dead, and that is its monu- 
 ment raised by the Frost King.' Imagine, just now, that 
 not a sound is reaching your ear -all that din stopped, 
 
And the Region Around. 309 
 
 and the murmuring altogether lulled, so that you could 
 hear the beating of your heart.' 
 
 " ' You don't mean to say that the stream was all gone ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' continued the other ; ' the water ran as before 
 up there, but was neither seen nor heard after it left the 
 ledge at the top of the falls. Suppose, now, that from the 
 place where we are sitting over to the other side of that 
 " amphitheatre," as you call it, a round, thick tower of 
 glass was built, hollow in the centre, rising up and up till 
 it came to that shelf from which the water now runs, where 
 would the drops go ? ' 
 
 "' Why, through the glass tower, of course. But what 
 has that to do with your description ? ' 
 
 " ' Everything ; for there would be no murmuring sound 
 of water as there is now ; nor thundering roar, such as I 
 have heard after a heavy storm, when that stream, now so 
 small and tame, sprang like an angry beast, till it cleared 
 the whole platform and fell into the lower basin yonder, 
 two hundred and twenty feet.' 
 
 " ' Yes. Captain, but your enthusiasm has made you for- 
 get your glass tower, which, as you describe it, must have 
 been a large bottle, bottomless, taking in the whole stream 
 at the neck and letting it run down its sides, so that it 
 passed through below.' 
 
 "'Just so, and better than I could describe it. It was 
 full eighty feet in diameter at the base, and one hundred 
 and eighty feet high, pure as snow, till it rose to the neck, 
 when it became clear as rock crystal, with the whole stream 
 entering and passing through it, so as to be plainly seen.' 
 
 " ' Certainly, that was a wonderful object, and equal to 
 any of the peaks of frost I have ever seen or heard of. 
 Does it rise so every winter ? ' 
 
 " ' No, sir. Old Fred said that he had hunted among the 
 mountains forty years, and had seen it complete only once 
 
3IO The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 before. A half-bottle may frequently be seen, like what 
 comes after a drunken frolic ; but the perfeft, full-blown 
 vessel, out of nature's glass-house, comes but once in a 
 lifetime.' 
 
 " ' I hope you had something warm to drink, Captain ; 
 for cold water, from a bottle of frost, may be good in a 
 hot summer day, but in winter it is quite another thing.' 
 
 " ' We had plenty of the hot stuif, sir ; and it was dearly 
 paid for, too, with broken heads and bones nearly cracked. 
 A little more, and I would not have been here to tell the 
 tale. After we had freely drunk of Santa Cruz rum, our 
 brains began to swim, and some of us did not know wheth- 
 er we were on our heads or our heels. I was ready for 
 anything ; either to scale the tower from .below, or to slide 
 down from above. Through recklessness I began to climb. 
 The rough sides of the gigantic thing allowed me a foot- 
 ing, so that I reached One of the turrets, twenty feet from 
 the ground, whete T stood looking around me. All round, 
 under the rocks, were huge pillars of ice, formed by the 
 water which had flowed through the seams. It seemed a 
 crystal theatre of display, and I: have often wished that 
 lights of a sufficient size and number could have been 
 introduced, so as to show the effedl of illumination in such 
 a place.' 
 
 " ' You must read, when you can,' said Bertram, ' the 
 account of the Empress of Russia's Palace of Ice, where 
 the thing you wish for was tried with full success. Then 
 turn to the Arabian Nights, and you will see the power of 
 Aladdin's lamp.' 
 
 " ' Well, sir, I stood on the turret, admiring my own dar- 
 ing as much as the wonders around me, when Jim Crap- 
 ser, that imp of Satan, cried out, " Three cheers for Gabe." 
 They were never given ; one was enough. It seemed as 
 if that single cheer would never stop. Crack ! crack ! 
 
And the Region Around. • 311 
 
 crack ! went the pillars all around, falling in pieces as big 
 as a cannon, and others like the trunk of a tree. As to 
 the small lumps, they were like a shower of grape-shot, 
 mixed with forty-pounders. It sounded and seemed more 
 like the last day than any battle I have been in. More 
 terrified beings I have never seen in aftual danger, with 
 no way of retreat. As for myself, I was in the safest 
 place, in the centre, looking at the shower. But to this 
 day I feel the shaking of that mass beneath me. If the 
 three cheers had been given the whole tower would, have 
 fallen, and I would have been crushed beneath the frag- 
 ments.' 
 
 " ' That would indeed have been a tale worth telling for 
 ever after. Buried by an avalanche, and swept away by 
 the stream when the spring floods came.' 
 
 " ' We left in double-quick time for a look at the ice-tower 
 from above. It reflefled the different colors of the rainbow, 
 and was, indeed, a frozen rainbow. But the half of the won- 
 ders of this spot has not been told you. Come here in 
 summer, and after a fall of rain, if you look up from be- 
 low, you will see an entire rainbow — a complete circle ; 
 and though you may laugh, I will tell it : I have seen my 
 face as distinftly in the centre, as I have ever seen it in a 
 looking-glass. I have stood hours 'looking up into that 
 wonderful glass, where I would sometimes see a single 
 face, then one other ; and as the sun shone out differently 
 through the clouds, there would be faces all around the 
 circle, constantly changing their position, like a mystic 
 wheel revolving, till the head grew so dizzy that I have 
 believed them to be faces looking down upon me from the 
 upper world — though they were not always of the most 
 pleasant kind.' 
 
 " ' While you were telling me of those cheerings which 
 shook icicles on you in showers, I was reminded of how 
 
3 1 2 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Dante, the Italian poet, describes hell : where ' Naked 
 spirits lay down, or huddled sat, trying to throw from them 
 the flakes of fire which came like snow. The devils called 
 out to other devils, thrusting the soul back into the boil- 
 ing pitch.' And looking up, Dante saw them, walking on 
 a mount of ice, their teeth chattering, and eyes locked up 
 with frozen tears." 
 
 Thus much for Dr. Murdoch and his romance, in which 
 some may perchance think that he romances in good earn- 
 est, drawing a long bow on his Scotch fiddle. As to this 
 r will only say, that with regard to the falling of avalanches, 
 and other large masses of ice and snow, when the heat of 
 the sun and the air has made them very tender and frail, 
 or has well-nigh detached them from the base on which 
 they rested, or the mountain side on which they hung, it 
 is known that the concussion of the air caused by loud 
 tones of a single human voice, or of many voices at a 
 time, may cause them to fall with wide-spread and deso- 
 lating force and fury. As bearing on this point, my friend 
 and fellow-student in theology, Rev. Dr. Perkins, who 
 has for many years been a missionary among the Nes- 
 torians in Northern Persia, thus speaks of that region : 
 
 " For nine years we have had a mission station on the 
 heights of Koordistan, just at the base of its loftiest moun- 
 tain, which is fourteen thousand feet above the level of the 
 sea, and second in height to Mount Ararat alone, in that 
 part of Asia. Cultivated men and women cheerfully forego 
 the comforts of the mild plains of Persia, for the self-denials 
 and hardships of a residence among those interior moun- 
 tains. There is one young married couple, in a deep gorge 
 of those central mountains, where the lofty encircling 
 ranges limit the rising and the setting of the sun to ten 
 o'clock A.M., and two p.m., much of the year ; where the 
 towering cones of solid rock, like peering Gothic spires, 
 
And the Region Around. 313 
 
 cast their pointed shadows from the moonbeams on the 
 sky, as on a canvas — nay, rear their tops against that 
 canopy, which seems to rest on them, as on pillars ; and 
 where, in winter, the terrific roar of avalanches, above and 
 around, is one of the most common sounds that salute the 
 ear. Often has the missionary scaled those mountains, 
 and threaded their deepest gorges, to search out the sheep 
 of those long-forgotten folds, and point thfln to the Good 
 Shepherd. Sometimes he has crept along the steep and 
 lofty cliff, towering threateningly above him, where whispers, 
 at particular seasons of the year, must be his only means 
 of communication, lest the sound of the human voice, by 
 an echo, bring upon him an overwhelming avalanche, ever 
 ready, at such seasons, to quit its bed at the summons of 
 the lightest jar." 
 
 Dr. Murdoch's book has in it numerous Dutch phrases 
 and expressions ; a language with which he was not very 
 familiar. Having loaned my copy of his book to a friend, 
 who has a good knowledge of Dutch, he returned it with 
 the following lines, among others, on a blank leaf at the 
 end of the work : 
 
 Oh, DoAor Murdoch t sin ye're dead, 
 1 ken there is nae miclde need 
 To criticize you, or to rede 
 
 Anent your Dutch : 
 But were ye here, I'd say, indeed. 
 
 It's mair like Scotch. 
 
 To see the water-scenery of the mountains, in all its 
 richly-varied fulness, grandeur, and beauty, one should 
 pass through the Cloves and visit the falls after a long and 
 severe rain-storm, when the streams are wildly swollen 
 - and raging ; when every ravine is filled with a fiercely- 
 rushing cascade, and from every fissure in the rocks the 
 water is gushing out, while over their tops, and from each 
 
314 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 clifF, copious streams are flowing ; and the larger falls, 
 with their swollen torrents and loud and deep-toned roar- 
 ing, drown the voice and excite emotions rapturous and 
 sublime. 
 
And the Region Arowtd. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Forest in Autumn.— The Sun and Frost— Effeft of Light— Verses on 
 Autumnal and other Mountain Sceneiy. — Winter Scenery of the Mountains. 
 — Gifford's Painting. — The Mountain House. — Summer Life in the Moun- 
 tains. — Hotels and Boarding-Houses. — Rip Van Winkle's Ravine. — Roads 
 to the Moimtains. — The Telegraph. — The Laurel House. — Palensville. — 
 The Haines House. — Gray's Hotel. — Death of Mr. Gray and others. — Stony 
 Qove. — Trout-Fishing. — PlattekiU Clove. — Fatal Accident tliefe. — Accident 
 in Cauterskiil Qove. — ^A Dog went over the Upper Falls and a Man over 
 the Lower one, — Both survived. 
 
 ALLUSION has already been made in this woric to 
 the richly-varied splendor and peculiar attraftive- 
 ness and beauty of the wide-spread mountain 
 forests in autumn, when their leaves, ripened by the 
 sunshine and rain, or by early frosts, or both, array them- 
 selves for death, for ruin, and decay, in hues of surpass- 
 ing splendor and beauty. I have from childhood been 
 familiar with this autumnal glory in various and widely- 
 remote regions, and yet have never seen elsewhere hues 
 so delicate, so varied, and of such richly-glowing and 
 surpassing beauty as are presented in the valleys at the 
 base of the Catskill Mountains, and all along their sides 
 and lofty summits, when the leaves of autumn have fully 
 ripened under the loving smiles of the sun, and the balmy 
 rain and dew of heaven alone, with no rude withering 
 frost-chill on them, though often, or rather commonly, the 
 early frosts begin and hasten on this work of death. Color 
 is, we know, the child of light ; and hence, where the sun 
 
3i6 The Catskill Mountains y 
 
 shines clearest and brightest, we find, both in the animal 
 and vegetable creation, the richest and most splendid 
 hues. To the pure, clear air of the mountain region we 
 may therefore probably ascribe the peculiarly rich, deli- 
 cate, and brilliant coloring of the autumnal scenery there. 
 In allusion to the common agency of the frosts of 
 autumn in coloring the forest leaves, the author, many 
 years since, wrote as follows : — 
 
 •* View now our forests^ spreading far and wide. 
 With richest hues by frosts of autumn dyed ; , 
 No other lands such scenes as these behold. 
 These brilliant shades of crimson, scarlet, gold I 
 The hedlic flush of Nature*5 wide decay. 
 Which brightly shines beneath the blaze of day ; 
 Like the &ir glow upon the cheek of death. 
 Which there survives the fleeting mortal breath." 
 
 While residing for years among the mountains, the im- 
 pressions there made were thus expressed : — 
 
 " O'er the earth I've widely wandered. 
 
 Many a lovely scene beheld ; 
 Where the hand of God has squandered 
 
 Grandeur, beauty, that excelled ; 
 Yet more beauteous, oh, how few, 
 
 Than these mountains robed in glory ; 
 Such as greets my rapturous view 
 
 When the hoary frosts of autumn. 
 Give the leaves their richest dye — 
 
 Golden, crimson, scarlet, putple. 
 With brilliant splendor meet the eye. 
 
 Scenes like these ne'er greet the vision 
 Of those who dwell beyond the sea. 
 
 And these leaf-crowned hills and mountams 
 Have enrapturing charms foi me> 
 
 Here they stand, as if the iris» 
 Shining robe of heavenly light. 
 
 By angelic hands extended, 
 F^ all glorious on the sight ; 
 
And the Region Around. 317 
 
 Like the rainbow which the prophet 
 Saw around the throne of Godi 
 
 Where no eye of man may see it. 
 Where no human foot has trod." 
 
 Closely conne(5led with these autumnal glories are the 
 brilliant and ever-changing splendor, magnificence, and 
 beauty of the skies and clouds of mountain regions (so 
 well described by Irving), as seen in light and darkness, 
 in sunshine and in shade, morning, evening, and at noon- 
 day. 
 
 " View now the glories of the rising sun. 
 
 Like man of might, arrayed his course to run ; 
 Decked like a bridegroom, soon to meet his bride, 
 In all the splendor of his richest pride. 
 While mists of morning wave before the eye. 
 Where mountain summits meet the lofty sky ; 
 Now soars the mist, like bridal vestments whit^ 
 A flowing robe of waving, silver light ; 
 Now hangs suspended in the upper aif, 
 Like the bold eagle, poised a moment there ; 
 Then graceful sinks, to peaks from which it rose. 
 Till every summit with new splendor glows. 
 
 Go stand awhile where walls of granite rise. 
 On either side, upheaving to the skies ; 
 Reared by the hand of Him who made the world. 
 Nor by the Deluge from their basements hurled ; 
 They proudly dare the tempest's blighting wrath. 
 And check the lightning in its burning path ; 
 Now the dark clouds their course majestic run, 
 And veil the glory of the noon-day sun ; 
 Then quickly pausing in their onward march. 
 They fonn on high a noble lofty arch ; 
 It seems a temple, vast and rudely wild. 
 Whose towering columns God himself has piled ; 
 To show his greatness, and the pride abase, 
 And vain presumptiop of our erring race. 
 Pause now and muse, beneath this broad expanse. 
 Far, ^ around thee cast thy searching ^ance ; 
 Behold yon mountains stretching far away. 
 Fresh robed with glories of departing day ; 
 
3i8 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 Her sable clouds with richest blessings stored. 
 
 O'er the glad earth have showers of plenty poured ; 
 
 And now uproUing from the shining west. 
 
 With radiant glory all the scene is dressed. 
 
 The brilliant sun lights up the evening sky. 
 
 And casts o'er nature hues of richest dye ; 
 
 The glittering rain-drops on the waving trees. 
 
 Seem liquid rubies in the gentle breeze ; 
 
 While the bright bow, uniting earth and heaven. 
 
 Tells erring man of sin's dark guilt forgiven. 
 
 The rising mist, a robe of living light. 
 
 The hill and plain have clothed in purest white ; 
 
 The fair horizon, stretching far and wid^ 
 
 With richest purple now is deeply dyed ; 
 
 The gorgeous clouds above the King of Day, 
 
 In brilliant masses proudly float away ; 
 
 Here shining amber o'er the sky is spread. 
 
 There the bright scarlet, or the deeper red ; 
 
 All nature glows with fairest glory crowned. 
 
 With joyous music earth and air resound ; 
 
 Then comes the twilight with its sweet reposej 
 
 And fading splendor o'er the landscape throws ; 
 
 Then starry eve in silent beauty reigns. 
 
 And spreads her mantle o'er the hills and plains; 
 
 Eternal God ! how great thy wondere are, 
 
 The winds thy coursers and the clouds thy car ; 
 
 Thy word which spake all being into life. 
 
 Now guides the storm and calms the tempest's strife ; 
 
 The wild tornado is thine angry breath. 
 
 Which whelms whole navies in the gulf of death ; 
 
 The lofty mountains in thy balance cast, 
 
 Light as the dust which flees before the blast ; 
 
 Old ocean's isles, deep rooted where they stand. 
 
 Are things of nought, suspended by thy hand." 
 
 THE WINTER SCENERY OF THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Multitudes, to the number of thousands, flock to the 
 mountains each summer, and farm-houses, boarding- 
 houses, and large hotels, for miles around, are crowded 
 with visitors and boarders, for two or three months. And 
 yet the wide-spread glories and beauties of the richly va- 
 
And the Region Around. 319 
 
 ried and ever-varying panorama of the summer landscape, 
 embracing, as viewed from the mountain summits, por- 
 tions of numerous counties and several States, with tow- 
 ering mountains, lofty forests, silvery streams, and a 
 thousand hill-sides and valleys, clothed with richest ver- 
 dure, or with waving fields of golden grain, and numerous 
 towns and villages everywhere beneath and around you ; 
 this fair and lovely summer landscape has to me, so far 
 as the mountains themselves are concerned, far less richly- 
 varied and imposing grandeur, magnificence and beauty, 
 than they present when winter has clothed them with her 
 mantle of snow ; the lofty evergreens, with undiminished 
 verdure, gracefully bowing beneath the even covering, or 
 the massive tufts of lightest snow, which find an airy rest- 
 ing-place on the slender and delicate foliage which sus- 
 tains them, while ever and anon, as the wintry breezes 
 move among them, a cloud of snowy mist or mist-like 
 snow for the moment envelops them, passing quickly 
 away ; or these evergreens, with other trees of the forest, 
 are richly crowned or heavily laden, for days or weeks at 
 a time, and for miles and miles in extent, for a thousand 
 feet or more down from their cooler upper heights, with a 
 dense rich covering of ice, waving, sparkling, dancing, 
 tossing, in the bright clear rays of winter sunshine, like 
 vast fields of glittering diamonds of purest lustre, richly 
 radiant with the brightest hues of ever-changing rainbow 
 glories, as gently waved or briskly tossed by wintry winds, 
 the rays of the sun at varying angles fall upon them. 
 
 When the trees are leafless, too, the grand, abrupt, and 
 massive mountain heights, the uniform and long-drawn 
 ribs which mark the outlines of the successive plateaux, 
 and ranges of distinft and well-defined cliffs, which rise 
 one above another from the base to the summit of the 
 mountains, with the lofty upper peaks — all these in winter 
 
320 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 stand forth to the eye in all their rude, bare, imposing 
 magnificence and glory ; or are covered in part with high, 
 broad sheets of glittering ice ; or long ravines show an icy, 
 silvery gleam, from the mountain's summit to their base, 
 while from projedling points and cliffs hang vast icicles, 
 massive and long, like huge trunks of forest trees ; or from 
 beneath, columns and pillars of ice, high and large, arise 
 beneath overhanging cliffs, in deep gorges, fed and slowly 
 reared by water trickling from above until you see them 
 with vast proportions, and when the sun falls upon them 
 glittering with a prismatic beauty, which far 
 
 " Outshines the wealth of Onnus or of Ind." 
 
 But the most striking scenes of winter magnificence ana 
 beauty are met with .in those deep mountain gorges, or 
 passes, known here by the name of cloves, because the 
 mountains are thus cloven, or cleft asunder, by Nature, or 
 rather by the God of Nature. These cloves have abrupt 
 mountain walls on either side, with rapid streams running 
 through them — these walls, from one to two thousand feet 
 in height — while down the steep ravines rush numerous 
 torrents and cascades, which, in winter, by their frozen 
 spray, make for themselves an icy bed or channel, while at 
 their base there are at times magnificent caves or hollow 
 pyramids of ice, like those at the Cauterskill Falls. I have 
 seen nothing like the Plattekill, Stony, and Cauterskill 
 cloves, at the White Mountains, in Europe, or South Amer- 
 ica, where so near at hand, so steeply abrupt, and so direft- 
 ly above you, there was, within the same space, so much 
 of forest-crowned, imposing, and varied magnificence and 
 grandeur. He who has not seen these cloves has seen but 
 little of the Catskill mountains ; yet but few of those who 
 come here visit them. 
 
 Gilford has a fine painting of the gorge at the Cauters- 
 
And the Region Around. 321 
 
 kill Falls, in which rudeness and grandeur have cast over 
 them the calm and quiet beauty which mark his works. 
 The following notice of this painting is from the New York 
 " Evening Post," a high authority in such matters : 
 
 " We have heretofore recorded our satisfaction with the 
 audacity shown by Gifford in selefting Kaaterskill gorge 
 for a subjeft. We see no reason to revise last winter's 
 verdift, now that the pidlure, plus a few more finishing 
 touches, hangs in the Academy. The precipitation of 
 one's whole artistic ability and reputation into a chasm 
 several hundred times larger than that which Quintus Cur- 
 tius stopped for the good of Rome, is a piece of boldness 
 only justified by its success. GiflTord has so bathed this 
 vast unrelieved depression in the face of nature with broad 
 yellow sunshine, and interpreted its giant distances by such 
 curiously skilful gradations of distinctness in its forest 
 lining from ridge to base, that one begins to admire a 
 gorge as he does a mountain — in faft, as the largest kind 
 of mountain turned inside out." 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE. 
 
 This palace-like strudlure, large and long, with its im- 
 posing colonnade in front, all of purest white, is to me 
 always a most interesting and attraftive obje^of sight at 
 the distance of some three miles from it in a diruft line, as 
 seen from the cliff above our house, or from numerous 
 points of the roads near us. In the morning, when the 
 sun shines clear and strong upon its front, its full and 
 striking outline and columns can all be plainly seen ; while 
 near the close of the day, or when it rests as a light, airy, 
 unsubstantial castle or palace in the air, on a dark, wild 
 background of clouds, as if itself a -shadowy part of the 
 moving panorama, it has seemed to me more as if it had 
 floated down from above, or was soaring upwards from 
 21 
 
322 The Catskill Mountaitis, 
 
 * 
 
 below, or like the chapel of Loretto, was making a journey 
 through the air, than a solid, massive fabric, reared by 
 human hands. 
 
 When I first came to this region to reside, my home was 
 for some time in the ancient Dutch stone house of my 
 
 friend and neighbor, Mr. B , at the four corners, on the 
 
 Hunter and Saugerties roads, half a mile south of the par- 
 sonage. This ancient dwelling has since given place to a 
 larger and more tasteful mansion, in modern style. The 
 Cauterskill Creek crosses the road a few rods from the 
 house. The lines which follow were written there, in full 
 view of what is described by them : 
 
 THE CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE. 
 
 As I sit within my study, 
 
 With its shaded windows low. 
 In the ancient stone-built dwelling 
 
 Xjstening to the river's flow; 
 
 Thence I see a stately mansion, 
 
 Resting on the mountain's brow. 
 With its wings afar extended. 
 
 Thus I look upon them now. 
 
 Like a palace built for angels 
 
 Pausing in its heavenward flight. 
 With its walls of snowy whiteness^ 
 
 Shining in the sxm's fair light 
 
 There it stands, to bless the pilgrim 
 
 From the^ city's heated homes. 
 Worn and weaiy with life's contest; 
 
 To this mountain height he comes. 
 
 Here he rests, from care unbending, 
 
 Here he cools his heated brain. 
 With his thanks on high ascending. 
 
 That he may a while remain. 
 
 Here the sufferer, wan and wasted. 
 Bowed with sickness long and sor^ 
 
And the Region Around. 323 
 
 Breathes the bracing air of heaven. 
 And his pains and griefs are o'er. 
 
 Here the child whose anxious parents. 
 
 Feared its early hopeless blight, 
 See its health and strength returning. 
 
 Like the joyous morning's light. 
 
 Here the maiden, fair and lovely. 
 
 Sinking to an early grave, 
 Finds the healthful mountain breezes 
 
 Have a power to cheer and save. 
 
 Here the matron, worn and weaiy. 
 
 Wasted by life's toil and care. 
 Feels her health and strength reviving 
 
 Fanned by bracing mountain air. 
 
 Here the aged man of sorrow, 
 
 Burdened with the weight of years. 
 Finds new strength, nor dreads the morrow, 
 
 Nor life's closing anguish fears. 
 
 Rest then ever, noble mansion. 
 
 On the lofty mountain's height, 
 Shedding round thee joy and gladness. 
 
 Like the morning's cheering light ; 
 
 Till in mansions, higher, brighter. 
 
 Where no setting sun shall shine, 
 All earth's pure and sin-washed pilgrims. 
 
 Shall in peace and joy recline. 
 
 SUMMER LIFE AMONG THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 Having lived for years on one of the lower cliffs of the 
 Catskill Mountains, in vigorous health, after years of city 
 dust, debility, toil, and at times severe disease, a brief 
 sketch of what is here done, as I have seen it during suc- 
 cessive summers, might be of interest and value to readers 
 at a distance, wishing to know how, where, and on what 
 terms they can secure for themselves or others the pleas- 
 ure and benefit of mountain scenery and mountain air, 
 
324 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 with a view to recreation and health, or to enjoy or employ 
 themselves as sportsmen, or as artists. Numerous letters 
 of inquiry as to these matters from the pleasure-seeking, 
 the care-worn and infirm, led me, some years since, to 
 publish fafls like those which follow, both to save myself 
 the trouble of answering letters from abroad, and to ben- 
 efit those who had no other means of accurate information 
 as to the subjects before us. The result of this was that 
 many came here from remote western states, and from all 
 the region nearer to us, who had not before known that 
 they could have board and quiet, comfortable homes here, 
 in private families, without subjefting themselves to the 
 expense of living in large hotels, with the noise and bustle 
 often met with in such places, though the hotels in this 
 region are very quiet, and in the main well condu6ted. 
 
 The mountains, during the summer, are peculiarly ac- 
 cessible by way of the village of Catskill, where the splen- 
 did boats on the Hudson River land, while a steam ferry 
 connefls it with the Hudson River Railroad, omnibuses 
 from the village, and lines of stages and other carriages 
 from the Mountain House, the Laurel House, from 
 Bloom's, and other hotels and boarding-houses, meet 
 the various trains and boats at the landing, half a mile 
 from the village. 
 
 In May and early in June the large hotels and numerous 
 boarding and farm-houses in and about Catskill, and on 
 and near the eastern slope of the mountains, and among 
 and beyond the upper heights, are opened for the season 
 of four or five months. The region thus occupied extends 
 from Durham, on the north, to Woodstock, on the south, 
 and from Catskill, on the east, to Hunter and Windham, 
 on the west, and many thousand persons, from all parts 
 of the world, visit this region each summer, many of them 
 remaining here for weeks and months. The region thus 
 
And the Region Around. 325 
 
 described is from twenty to thirty miles or more in length 
 and breadth. The main points of interest and attraftion, 
 however, are the upper heights, in the region of the 
 Mountain House, from the Cauterskill Clove, on the 
 south, and from those heights eastward, down the slope 
 and along the base of the mountains, for several miles on 
 either side of the broad meadows, fertile fields, and rapid 
 mountain streams, of the valley of Kiskatom. This name, 
 which is given to a stream, valley, and parish, is said to be 
 of Indian origin, meaning a hickory-tree, or nut, or a 
 group or grove of such trees, and in some parts of New 
 Jersey and of Long Island hickory-nuts are still called 
 "kiskatoms." As the' tree in question abounds in this 
 region, this tradition with regard to the word is probably 
 a correft one. 
 
 Leaving Catskill, for the mountains, the road passes 
 through a hilly region of singularly varied fertility and 
 beauty, with frequent and inspiring views, at first of the 
 river and the rich hill-sides and valleys on either side of 
 it, and then of the mountain range, with its upper peaks 
 from three to four thousand feet high, and from twelve to 
 twenty miles distant. Five miles from Catskill is the 
 " Half-way House," or " Catskill Mountain Retreat," of 
 Mr. Bloom, an enterprising, energetic young man, in full 
 view of the mountains, new, spacious, airy, and well pat- 
 ronized, and accommodating some fifty or sixty boarders 
 or more. Passing direftly on from Bloom's, two miles 
 west, you cross the fertile and well watered plain of the 
 valley of Kiskatom to the humble Dutch church, with its 
 lowly spire, at the foot of the mountains. From this point 
 the road, which is smooth and in fine repair, is mainly 
 ascending for the first two miles, with farm lands on 
 either side of it. Then at the toll-gate commences the 
 steep, wooded mountain road, of three miles, to the Moun- 
 
326 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 tain House. Just south of the toll-gate, in the rear of the 
 large farm-house, there is a saw-mill, on a small mountain 
 stream, which comes rapidly down through a wild, deep, 
 rocky ravine. On the right of this stream, the road up 
 the mountain runs at some distance above and parallel 
 to it for nearly a mile, when, coming to abrupt cliffs, it 
 turns to the left, over a bridge, and passes in a south- 
 western direftion on to the upper heights. 
 
 This ravine is the one through which Rip Van Winkle 
 is said to have passed when he met the strange old man 
 with a keg of liquid fire on his back, and at the head of 
 which he saw the solemn, antique jroup playing nine-pins, 
 the rolling of whose balls sounded like thunder among the 
 mountains. On one of the airy heights above Rip is said 
 to have taken his long sleep of years. Where the road 
 crosses the ravine there has, for many years,, been a small, 
 white building, called "The Shanty," which Was open 
 during the summer for refreshments, mainly liquid, and 
 where travelers and their horses drank of the cool, pure 
 water, coming down from the rocky heights above. At 
 this point a worthy friend and parishioner of the author 
 has built a temperance boarding-house and hotel, cool 
 and shady, with rooms for from thirty to fifty guests. 
 Travelers must highly prize such a resting-place, while 
 sportsmen, artists, and lovers of seclusion and repose will 
 find there a quiet, well-ordered home. 
 
 From the woody road of the last two miles up the 
 mountains there are occasional glimpses of the splendid 
 panorama of forest and fields, of mountain and valley, 
 near and far away, which is seen in all its grandeur of 
 magnificent and widely-varied extent and beauty from the 
 Mountain House, and the heights around it. 
 
 Going west and south from the Mountain House, be- 
 tween the two lakes near it, a ride of two miles and a half 
 
And the Region Around. 327 
 
 brings one to the LaurelHouse, at the head of the Cau- 
 terskill Falls, in a" cool, deep, densely-wooded ravine, where 
 from fifty to one hundred boarders find a retired, pleasant 
 summer home, commonly remaining much longer than do 
 the guests at theMountain House, where the expenses are 
 much greater. At the Mountain House four or five hun- 
 dred can be accommodated, with all the comforts and lux- 
 uries of the best hotels in our large cities, at about the 
 same price charged there ; while a line of telegraph from 
 thence connefls with other lines throughout the land — a 
 recent effort of the well-direfted enterprise and wealth of ' 
 Mr. Beech, the proprietor of the Mountain House, and of 
 the turnpike leading to it. At the Laurel House, Mr. 
 Schutt receives and provides for his guests with kind, 
 attentive care ; and there I sometimes preach Sabbath 
 evenings in the summer, meeting among the boarders with 
 those of the highest social and Christian charadler, culture, 
 and position in life, and I always find there a hearty wel- 
 come and good cheer for my friends and myself. At the 
 Mountain House, too, they have preaching on the Sabbath, 
 by able divines of different denominations from all parts 
 of our own, and fi-om other lands, often with fine vocal and 
 instrumental music — the large parlor there conveniently 
 accommodating several hundred persons. A few miles 
 beyond the Mountain House, the road connefts with the 
 turnpike through the Clove, leading to Hunter, Prattsville, 
 and further west. At a distance from the Mountain House 
 to the east, it is seen to be in a basin, with the lakes in its 
 rear, and other peaks, some of them nearly four thousand 
 feet high, around ; while water from a spring, a mile distant, 
 is carried by iron pipes to the upper stories of the house. 
 If now we start again from Bloom's, and turn towards 
 the mountains, taking the second road on the left, we cross 
 the valley of Kiskatom and the road to Saugerties, which 
 
328 Thp Catskill Mountains, 
 
 runs along the eastern base of the mountains at a point 
 a mile south of the Dutch church, and thence pass on to 
 Palensville, and through the Cauterskill Clove, with its 
 grandly-varied and magnificent scenery, on to Hunter, 
 Jewett, Lexington, and Prattsville. It is some five miles 
 from Bloom's to the foot or eastern entrance of the Clove, 
 and three miles through it to the top of the mountain. 
 From Bloom's to the Clove, most of the farm-houses for 
 two miles north and south of the road have boarders in 
 the summer, with pleasant, airy rooms, kind attendance, 
 and fresh, wholesome, country food. Along the road 
 through Palensville are large, well-kept, and well-filled 
 boarding-houses ; and there is one among the wild, deep, 
 lonely gorges of the Clove, where sportsmen, artists, and 
 fashionable boarders from the city may be seen, and where 
 the apartments, as is true of many fashionable places of 
 summer resort, strongly suggest to one the idea of close 
 packing, and of that peculiar expansiveness and elasticity 
 which belong to city cars and omnibuses, in which there 
 is always room for one more. Very genteel-looking peo- 
 ple may at times be seen coming from hay-lofts, at large 
 hotels ; and steamers, loaded with passengers, have had 
 to accommodate them or carry them away, because there 
 was no room for them on the mountain. The telegraph 
 wires from the Mountain House, however, communicating 
 with distant places, now enable guests to learn beforehand 
 what accommodations they can have, and to secure rooms 
 in advance when they wish to do so. 
 
 Near the upper end of the Clove is the Haines House, 
 accommodating thirty or forty boarders, with the falls of 
 the same name near them. The stream there is small, 
 except after he.avy rains, but the volume of water is much 
 increased, as it is at the Laurel House, by opening a mill- 
 dam above them, when visitors are present. These falls 
 
And the Region Around. 329 
 
 are several hundred feet_ high, in all, with a succession of 
 rapids and cascades connected with them, in a long, deep, 
 narrow mountain gorge, of peculiarly varied wildness and 
 rude and imposing impressiveness and grandeur. A few 
 miles west of the Haines House is the large and popu- 
 lar boarding-house and hotel of Mr. Gray, formerly kept 
 for many years by Mr. Norman Gray, who was killed some 
 time since near the foot of the Clove, by being thrown 
 from a carriage, his horses having backed oflF a high, steep 
 bank, when he fell, his head striking a stone, leaving him 
 senseless, and causing his death soon after. Other acci- 
 dental deaths and suicides near the same spot, within a 
 few years past, have given a sad notoriety to the place. 
 From the Haines House, west, to the village of Hunter, 
 and in and around the village, and beyond it, summer 
 board may be found. 
 
 Before reaching Hunter, on the left, is a road leading 
 to and through Stony Clove, a deep, narrow pass, through 
 the mountains, shut in on either side by lofty precipices, 
 wild and steep, and yet where well nigh perpendicular, 
 thickly covered with a deep green mantle of plants and 
 shrubs. Through this Clove there is a wild mountain 
 stream, abounding in trout, where sportsmen sojourn or 
 encamp, for days, or a week or more at a time, single par- 
 ties taking sometimes many hundreds of these delicious 
 fish, leaving behind them but a poor chance for unskilled 
 fishermen, who know nothing of the mysteries of fly- 
 fishing, and choice kinds of bait, and of strongly attradlive 
 aromatic oils, by which the shy and cunning fish are, with 
 much taft and art, lured from their dark retreats. True, 
 indeed, is it there, as the poet says, that 
 
 "The angler, with unbailed hook, 
 Will draw no fishes from the brook," 
 
330 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ■while a stick and a string with a worm at one end and a 
 fool at the other, are altogether out of place where trout 
 are concerned. 
 
 About five miles south of Cauterskill Clove, and run- 
 ning parallel to it through the mountains, is Plattekill 
 Clove, a wild, rude mountain pass, with a deep, rocky 
 gorge, through which a rapid stream rushes down to the 
 plains below. The precipices on either side of this Clove 
 are not so high, imposing, and abrupt as are those of the 
 Cauterskill and Stony Cloves, and yet there is in the 
 scenery there much that is striking and grand, though the 
 old road through it is anything but well made and smooth. 
 These wild mountain roads, when covered with ice, in the 
 winter, are in some places very dangerous. A few years 
 since, a farmer, with a loaded sleigh, was passing down 
 the Plattekill Clove, when coming to a place where the 
 water from the upper side of the road had flowed over it, 
 forming an unbroken surface of ice, inclining towards the 
 lower side, his sleigh there suddenly slid sideways, over a 
 precipice, causing the death of himself and his horses. 
 In the Cauterskill Clove, too, a Mr. H., who lives near its 
 upper end, while coming down the steep descent of the 
 first mile, chanced to get the hind-wheel of his loaded 
 wagon out of the iron shoe, by means of which such fric- 
 tion was caused as prevented the load from pressing too 
 hard upon his team. The result was, that the horses 
 were crushed to the earth ; one of them was killed, the 
 other so injured that it was necessary to take his life, to 
 free him from suffering, and Mr. H. himself was made a 
 cripple for life, by the breaking and dislocation of his 
 bones. 
 
 At the Laurel House, a dog, of medium size, belonging 
 to Mr. Peter Schutt, father of the proprietor of the house, 
 some years since, went over the Upper Falls, a distance 
 
And the Region Around. 331 
 
 of one hundred and eighty feet, into the basin below, and 
 yet was able to climb up the steep bank to the house. 
 
 In the forenoon of July 20, 1850, Mr. C. B. F., a young 
 man from Utica, aged nineteen, and weighing nearly two 
 hundred pounds, was standing on the inclined surface of 
 a rock, at the head of the Lower Falls, at the Laurel 
 House, with two young friends near him, when he slipped 
 and went over the falls, eighty feet, into the rocky basin 
 below. There was at the time a high freshet, to which 
 fadl Mr. F. was probably indebted for the saving of his 
 life, as the force of his fall was thus greatly lessened. 
 One leg was broken above the knee, as was also the 
 shoulder-blade. By deep wading through the lake, and 
 much effort, Mr. Peter Schutt obtained help from the 
 Mountain House, Mr. Beech, the proprietor, coming from 
 a sick bed, and the old attachd of the house, Mr. Thorp, 
 known as " the bear-hunter,'' aided in the difficult task of 
 carrying the injured man up the steep banks, and re- 
 cently described to me what then occurred. It was ten 
 o'clock P.M., when, with much effort and exposure, two 
 physicians arrived. By skilful medical attendance, aided 
 by a vigorous, youthful constitution, and the kind and de- 
 voted care and nursing of Mrs. Schutt, wife of the pro- 
 prietor of the Laurel House, Mr. F. was in six weeks able 
 to leave for home! One year later his name is on the 
 register of the house, as " alive and kicking," he being 
 then a visitor there ; and he is, I understand, still living. 
 
332 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Cauterskill Falls, by Bryant.— Road to the Mountains, and the building 
 of Hotels there. — Catskill. — How Reached. — Road and Conveyances from 
 it — Obje<5ls and Places of Interest — Underground Stream. — ^I'he Abeel 
 House. — Moses Rock. — North Mountain. — Precipice Echoes. — Bear Den. — 
 Rgad through Palensville. — Ravine and Falls. — A Toast to the Bee. — Falls 
 near Palensville.— T. A. Richards.— The Clove.— Haines Falls.— North 
 Lake. — South Mountain. — Pudding-stone Hall. — Portico Rocks. — Fairy 
 Spring. — Elfin Pass. — South Lake. — Prospedt Rock. — Maiden's Glen. — The 
 Enchanting Vale. — The Sunset Tree. — Bear Track. — Trout Brook. — Juniper 
 Springs.— Trout Fishing. — Plattekill Clove. — Emerald Pool. — Mountain 
 Scenery. — Waldensian Hymn. 
 
 THE CAUTERSKILL FALLS. 
 
 BY WILLIAM C BRYANT. 
 
 MIDST greens and shades the Cauterskill leaps, 
 From cliffs where the wood-flower clings ; 
 All summer he moistens his verdant steps, 
 
 With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs ; 
 And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, 
 When they flrip with the rains of autumn tide. 
 
 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 ialls ; 
 With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair. 
 
 And pillars blue as the summer air. 
 
 For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, 
 
 In the cold and cloudless night ? 
 Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought^ 
 
 In forms so lovely and hues so bright ? 
 Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell 
 
 Of tliis- wild stream and its rocky dell. 
 
And the Region Around. 333 
 
 'Twas here a youth of dreamy mood, 
 
 A hundred winters ago — 
 Had wandered over the mighty wood. 
 
 Where the panther's track was fresh on the snow ; 
 And keen were the winds that came to stir 
 
 The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir. 
 
 Too gentle of mien he seemed, and fair, 
 
 For a child of those rugged steeps ; 
 His home lay down in the valley where 
 
 The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps ; 
 But he wore the hunter's frock that day. 
 
 And a slender gim on his shoulder lay. 
 
 And here he paused, and against the trunk 
 
 Of a tall gray linden leant ; 
 Where the broad, clear orb of the sun had sunk 
 
 From his path in the frosty firmament ; 
 And over the round dark edge of the hill, 
 
 A cold green light was quivering still. 
 
 And the crescent moon, high over the green. 
 
 From a sky of crimson shone ; 
 On that icy palace where towers were seen. 
 
 To sparkle as if with stars of their own ; 
 While the water fell with a hollow sound, 
 
 'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. 
 
 Is that a being of life that moves 
 
 Where the crystal battlements rise ? 
 A maiden watching the moon she loves. 
 
 At the twilight hour with pensive eyes? 
 Was that a garment which seemed to gleam. 
 
 Betwixt the eye and the filing stream ? 
 
 *Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er. 
 
 In the midst of those glassy walls ; 
 Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor 
 
 Of the rocky basin in which it falls ; 
 'Tis only the torrent, but why that start ? 
 
 Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart? 
 
 He thinks no more of his home afar, 
 
 Where his sire and his sister wait ; 
 He heeds no longer how star after star, 
 
 Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late ; 
 
334 Tf^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 He heeds not the snow-wreath, lifted and cast 
 From a thousand boughs by the rising blast 
 
 His thoughts are alone of those who dwell 
 
 In the halls of frost and snow ; 
 Who pass where the crystal domes upswell. 
 
 From the alabaster floors below ; 
 Where the frost-trees bourgeon with leaf and spray. 
 
 And frost-gems scatter a silvery day. 
 
 And oh 1 that those glorious haunts were mine 1 
 
 He speaks, and throughout the glen. 
 Their shadows swim in the faint moonshine. 
 
 And take a ghastly likeness of men ; 
 As if the slain by the wintry storms 
 
 Came forth to the air in their earthly forms. 
 
 There pass the chasers of seal and whale. 
 
 With their weapons quaint and grim ; 
 And bands of warriors in glittering mail. 
 
 And herdsmen and hunters, huge of limb; 
 There are naked arms with bow and spear, 
 
 And furry gauntlets the carbine rear. 
 
 There are mothers, and oh ! how sadly their eyes. 
 
 On their children's white brows rest I 
 There are youthfiil lovers — the maiden lies. 
 
 In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast ; 
 There are fair, wan women, with moonstruck air. 
 
 And snow-stars flecking their long loose hair. 
 
 They eye him not as they pass along, 
 
 But his hair stands up with dread ; 
 When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng 
 
 Till those icy turrets are over his head ; 
 And the torrent's roar as they enter, seems 
 
 Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams. 
 
 The glittering threshold is scarcely passed. 
 When there gathers and wraps him round, 
 
 A thick white twilight, sullen and vast. 
 In which there is neither form nor sound ; 
 
 The phantoms, the glory, vanish all. 
 With the dying voice of the waterfiill. 
 
And the Region Around. 335 
 
 Slow passes the darkness of that trancej 
 
 And the youth now faindy sees — 
 Huge shadows, and gushes of light that dance 
 
 On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees ; 
 And walls where the skins of beasts are hung, 
 
 And riiles glitter, on antleis strung. 
 
 On a couch of shaggy skins he lies. 
 
 As he strives to raise his head ; 
 Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes. 
 
 Come round him and smoothe his Airry bed ; 
 And bid him rest, for the evening star 
 
 Is scarcely set, and the day is ^. 
 
 They had found at eve the dreaming one. 
 
 By the base of that icy steep ; 
 When over his stiffening limbs begun 
 
 The deadly slumber of frost to creep ; 
 And they cherished the pale and breathless form. 
 
 Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm. 
 
 Early in the present century a citizen of Catskill ob- 
 tained a charter for a turnpike road over the mountains, 
 west, to Unadilla, but having failed to carry out the en- 
 terprise, a company was formed, with a view to prosecute 
 the work, but the road was made only some eight or ten 
 miles from the eastern base of the mountains, to the road 
 leading through the Cauterskill Clove, to Hunter, and 
 further west There was at first a rude building, or 
 shanty, where the Mountain House now is, for the ac- 
 commodation of summer parties and excursions, but not 
 for lodgers. Soon after 1820, a company was organized, 
 mostly in Catskill, with a capital of more than twenty 
 thousand dollars, which built a hotel, three stories high, 
 with a piazza in front, for the accommodation of summer 
 travelers and boarders. About twenty years later, Mr. 
 ChaHes L. Beech bought the house, which he has greatly 
 enlarged and improved, and purchased most of the stock 
 of the tiirnpike company, so as to have the control of the 
 
336 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 road, which he keeps in excellent order. This whole 
 speculation, or enterprise, rather, has been a peculiarly 
 successful and popular one. 
 
 At the Cauterskill Falls there was for some time only a 
 small, white building, overhanging the Upper Fall, kept 
 by Mr. Peter Schutt, father of the present proprietor of 
 the Laurel House. Then there was a small house for 
 boarders, which has since been much enlarged. Gray's 
 Hotel, on the Clove road, has been in successful operation 
 for quite a number of years, while the Haines House is 
 of recent construftion. There is also a house on the 
 southern slope of the mountains, in Woodstock, and there 
 should be one at the Plattekill Clove. 
 
 Catskill is commonly reached by travelers, in summer, 
 by the way of the Hudson River Railroad, stopping at 
 the Catskill Station, crossing the river to the opposite 
 landing ; or by means of the large steamers which run 
 daily between New York and Albany ; or by the smaller 
 steamers which connefl Catskill with New York, New- 
 burgh, Albany, and other places on the river. From the 
 point where the steam ferry-boat lands, carriages and om- 
 nibuses take passengers to the village, half a mile distant, 
 or carry them direftly to the mountains or elsewhere, as 
 they may desire. The hotels and some of the larger 
 boarding-houses have carriages, or stages, which run 
 daily, or oftener, to and from them and the landing and 
 village, while from other houses carriages are sent to meet 
 such as are coming to them as boarders, at times pre- 
 viously agreed upon. 
 •Most of the wealth, taste, and beauty of Catskill, so fer 
 as houses, gardens, and ornamental grounds are con- 
 cerned, are on the hill, east of the business part of the 
 village, where are beautiful views of the Catskill moun- 
 tains on one side, and the river and the distant heights of 
 
And the Region Around. 337 
 
 the Taghkanic range on the other. There, too, is the quiet 
 and richly-shaded cemetery, while from the roads leading 
 from the village north, to Hudson on the right, and to 
 Leeds on the left, are striking and inspiring views of the 
 long and widply-varied range of mountain scenery, some 
 ten miles distant, and stretching far away to the north and 
 south. 
 
 One mile west of the village, on the way to the moun- 
 tains, the road, for some distance, is cut from the side of 
 a woody, rocky precipice, on the left of which may be 
 seen the distant eastern mountains, the river, with the 
 fair and fertile valley through which it flows, and the 
 village, with its rural cemetery, all forming a landscape 
 peculiarly pifluresque, varieef, and beautiful. Passing on 
 thence, by a pleasant forest road, through the toU-gate, a 
 mile beyond it, is a clump of trees, just where the road 
 begins to descend, by a winding, rocky way, to a fertile 
 meadow below. In the field just back of these trees, 
 may be seen a deep rocky chasm, into which a small 
 stream flows, passing from thence under the solid mass 
 or mound of rocks on the right, and coming out near the 
 foot of the hill, ten or fifteen rods distant, and at a point 
 thirty feet or more lower than the rocky mound beneath 
 which it flows. When the snow melts in spring there is 
 more water than can pass under the hill, and thus a lake 
 is formed by the roadside above, some forty or fifty rods 
 in length. 
 
 Further on, after descending a long hill, and crossing 
 the Cauterskill Creek, the road passes through the beau- 
 tiful valley elsewhere described in this work. On ascend- 
 ing the hill beyond, a long low stone house may be seen, 
 half a mile up the valley, to the left, from which the 
 Abeels, father and son, were taken by the Indians and 
 Tories, during the Revolutionary war, and carried away 
 
338 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 captives to Canada. In the deep woody ravine on the 
 hill, by the roadside further on, are beautiful cascades, 
 much frequented by boarders in the neighborhood. Just 
 beyond the " Half-Way House," or « Catskill Mountain 
 Retreat " of Mr. Bloom, the road divides ; the branch to 
 the right, leading directly on, past the Dutch church, up 
 the mountain, by the Rip Van Winkle Ravine, and the 
 grandly solitary, and sublime wooded road, with its lofty 
 overhanging cliffs, to the Mountain House. Half a mile 
 or more before reaching the summit, there is an old road 
 on the left, leading down the mountain, to Palensville, 
 some two miles south. Passing down this road three- 
 fourths of a mile, there is a precipice or cliflF, some thirty 
 feet high and eighty long, covered with moss, near the 
 base of which, except in very dry weather, a stream of 
 water gushes from a circular opening in the cliff; and 
 this has given to it the name of Moses Rock, in allusion to 
 that, or rather to those, from which the Israelites were sup- 
 plied in the wilderness ; for two miracles, with an inter- 
 val of many years between them, were performed, in 
 order to call forth from rocks water to quench their thirst, 
 and save them from death. 
 
 In ascending the mountain, there are points where 
 glimpses may be had of the wide landscape to the east, 
 and just before reaching the Mountain House, you see 
 it on an almost overhanging cliff above you. A little 
 higher up, a path on the right leads to the North Moun- 
 tain, following which, half a mile or more, you come to 
 an abrupt rock, from the top of which the lakes and the 
 high mountains to the south can be seen. On the north 
 side of this rock a fine echo may be heard with four dis- 
 tinft reverberations. Further on is a precipice, ascended 
 by a ladder, where is a large cavern, formed of im- 
 mense rocks rudely thrown together, and called the Bear's 
 
And the Region Around. 339 
 
 Den. From the summit there, the Mountain House and 
 lakes, with distant towns, cities, far-off mountains, and 
 wide-spread hills and valleys, can be seen. 
 
 The road, which inclines to the left soon after leaving 
 Bloom's,, on the way to the mountains, through the Cau- 
 terskill Clove, just beyond the flats, and where it crosses 
 the road to Saugerties, goes over a bridge, about thirty rods 
 above which is a narrow, wild, rough, shady ravine, where 
 the water pours over a high rock, falling twenty feet or 
 more, and after a heavy rain making a rush and a roar 
 peculiarly impressive and imposing. The entire seclusion 
 of the place, its glittering spray and refreshing coolness, 
 made it a favorite retreat for friends who were with us in 
 summer, as a path through the woods, of half a mile, led 
 from our house to the Falls. One lady, an artist, made a 
 sketch of the scenery there for an oil-painting, while 
 another — a pupil of mine in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, 
 the gifted authoress of " Geofli-ey the Lollard," and " Mar- 
 cella of Rome," whose nom de plume is Frances East- 
 wood, who spent much time in this wild and lovely ravine 
 — as the resuh of one of her visits there wrote the playful 
 and beautiful lines which follow. They were published in 
 that able and popular magazine, " Hours at Home," from 
 which I copy them : 
 
 A TOAST TO THE BEE, 
 
 Down in the glen, where the waters fell, 
 Sparkling over the rocky wall, 
 With its dripping moss, and lichens gray. 
 And bushes wet with the glittering spray ; 
 Where the jealous trees shut out the sun, 
 That they may enjoy the wild beauty alone ; 
 I stretched me at ease, by the fountain's side. 
 And dipped my cup in the bubbling tide. 
 
 Out of its sheltered stony bed. 
 One little clover raised its head ; 
 
340 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 But a busy bee, that had lost its way, 
 
 In the lonely glen, that summer's day. 
 
 Spied the treasure, and holding &st. 
 
 Drained irom its cup his sweet repast 
 
 And this was the toast I gave the bee : 
 
 To friends that I love, and friends that love rae. 
 
 We drank it in silence — ^the bee and I, 
 
 He could not, I would not, have made reply ; 
 
 Then away on his swiit wing flew the bee. 
 
 And away fled my thoughts much swifter than he. 
 
 Far from the lonely glen, fax from the rill. 
 
 Over the valley, over the hill. 
 
 Over the land, and over the sea. 
 
 To the friends that I love, and the friends that love me. 
 
 I found them all — not one did I miss ; 
 I greeted each \nth a loving kiss ; 
 All the dear &ces I ever have known. 
 Looked with true sympathy into my own ; 
 Curly heads were laid on my breast. 
 Baby lips tu my own were, pressed ; 
 Love leaped up with enkindled flame. 
 As I called each dear-loved iace by name. 
 
 My foot slid down from the slippery stone, 
 
 I started, and found I was all alone ! 
 
 Over the rocks da&hed the noisy rill. 
 
 The spray was dripping from branches still ; 
 
 The bushes bent from the mossy wall, 
 
 And the soft clouds floated over all ; 
 
 And fresh and strong the mountain breeze. 
 
 Stirred the boughs of the jealous trees ; 
 
 This, and no more, my eyes could see. 
 
 No friend that I loved, nor friend that loved me. 
 
 Passing on west, from the point just described to the 
 church in Palensville, and there turning to the left, there 
 is a beautiful fall of twenty or thirty feet, half a mile 
 south-west of the church. Returning to the main road, on 
 crossing the bridge at the foot of the Clove, there are 
 rapids and cascades above and below ; of which. ::nd of 
 much of the scenery in the mountains, including that of 
 
And the Region Around. 341 
 
 Plattekill CJove, spirited engravings may be seen, in con- 
 nexion with an article by T. Addison Richards, in Har- 
 per's Magazine of July, 1854. There are also similar 
 sketches in Harper's Weekly of July 21, 1866. 
 
 The little village at the lower extremity of the Cauters- 
 kill Clove, with the region for a mile or more east of it, is 
 known by the name of " Palensville," from a worthy 
 family of that name who removed there some seventy 
 years since, and erefted and long carried on an extensive 
 tannery. Speaking of the Clove, in connexion with this 
 point, Mr. Richards truly says : " Very few of the thou- 
 sands who annually visit the Mountain House, ever ex- 
 plore this, the most charming part of the Catskills. Here, 
 at the portals of the hills, you have an equal and ready 
 access to the great valley on one side and the mountain 
 solitudes on the other. Eastward from the hamlet half a 
 mile, is a most lovable cascade, too much neglefted by the 
 few travelers who come to the Clove. A minute's walk 
 through a dense copse will bring you to a fine point of 
 observation. Seated on a moss-grown rock, and shaded 
 by the sloping eaves of giant hemlocks, you muse on flood 
 and fell. At your feet lies the deep basin of dark waters, 
 the clustering foliage toying with their busy bubbles. 
 The cascade and its accompanying rock ledges fill the 
 middle ground, exposing beyond the entire stretch of the 
 southern line of hill, until it is lost in the golden haze of 
 the setting sun. A little way below and this pifture 
 occurs again, in a scarcely less pleasing form. The greater 
 beauties, however, lie west of the village and along the 
 bed of the torrent flowing through the Clove, rather than 
 on the road which passes near it. You must make a thou- 
 sand dftours to properly explore the varying course of the 
 stream, which dashes and leaps through this magnificent 
 pass. You must risk your neck now and then in descend- 
 
342 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 ing to the arena of a ghostly glen, far below the roadside ; 
 and then you must struggle manfully to pull your aching 
 limbs back again. Ascending a mile and a half, you cross 
 the stream on a wooden bridge at the pifturesque and 
 favorite point of ' High Rocks.' Below this bridge is a 
 fall of great extent and beauty. To see it to advantage 
 you must take the foot-paths leading to the edge of the 
 water, on the upper bank, where a good granite lounge 
 looks the roystering spray full in the face. 
 
 " Beyond this point the stream may be followed two or 
 three hundred yards, to the base of another fall, known as 
 the ' Dog Hole.' It is a perpendicular leap of some 
 thirty feet, and the stream, here extremely narrowed by 
 the rocky banks, rushes over an immense concave ledge 
 into a cauldron from which a fish could scarcely emerge. 
 Passing the ruins of the tanneries above the Dog Hole, 
 and again springing and tumbling from rock to rock and 
 from log to log, we make our way up the stream. Leav- 
 ing on our right the brook which comes down from the 
 lakes and falls on the mountain, we pass up the left 
 branch, which leads to Haines' Falls, at the head of the 
 Clove. Here is the favorite studio of the many artists 
 who visit the Catskills. Nowhere else do they find, 
 within the same narrow range, so great and rich a field for 
 study. Every step is over noble piles of well-marked 
 rocks, and among the most grotesque forest fragments, 
 while each successive bend in the brook discloses a new 
 and different cascade. Often in these wild glens have we 
 looked upward, where 
 
 * Higher yet the pine tree hung 
 Its darksome trunk, and irequent flung, 
 Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, 
 His bows athwart the nairowed sky.* 
 
 " Or we have ga;zed below, where 
 
And the Region Around. 343 
 
 * Rock on rock incumbent hung, 
 And torrents down the gullies flung, 
 Joined the rude river that brawled on, 
 Recoiling now from crag and stone.* 
 
 "As we walked joyously along up the mountain we spoke 
 of the comparative charms of Nature, in the various sea- 
 sons of the year. One loved the fresh and sparkling em- 
 eralds of Spring, and her pure and buoyant airs. Another 
 rejoiced and dreamed happy dreams, fanned by the warm 
 and soothing breezes of summer; while a third reveled 
 in the fanciful and gorgeous appareling of motley autumn, 
 in the rainbow beauty of the forest leaves. Our guide 
 preferred the terrors of winter, when the fathomless 
 depths of snow buried the hills, and the giant stalaftites 
 of ice sentinelled their narrow passes. 'You should see,' 
 said he, as we stood beneath the towering rocks of Haines 
 Falls, ' you should see those thousand rills trickling and 
 leaping down so merrily from the summit of the moun- 
 tains as they appear in winter, in the shape of glittering 
 icicles a hundred feet in length. You should look upon 
 these waters when bitter frosts have chilled them into icy 
 monuments.' " 
 
 Another writer, who sojourned at Bracket's, in the wild 
 depths of the Clove, where so many artists, sportsmen, 
 and others find a pleasant summer home, thus describes 
 the scenery there : 
 
 "There are about here the loveliest portions of the 
 Catskill scenery. I do not know where to find a more 
 charming stretch of mountain brook, a more picturesque 
 succession of rock-forms, than one enters at 'Fawn's 
 Leap' and leaves at the head of Haines Falls. At 
 ' Fawn's Leap ' the brook falls over a perpendicular wall, 
 the brink of the precipice being but a biscuit-toss across, 
 and so broken and channeled as to separate the water into 
 
344 T^f^^ Catskill Mountains, 
 
 beautifully varied masses. There is a bridge across the 
 stream, affording easy access to the best places from 
 which to view the falls, while below it is the boiling mass 
 of waters, some twenty yards in circumference and fifteen 
 feet in depth. 
 
 " The whole brook-side, from ' Fawn's Leap ' to Haines 
 Falls, is a succession of charming, dewy rock grottoes, 
 fresh mossy nooks, guarded by the graceful iron-wood, 
 with its trunk of speckled and shining chestnut color, and 
 its profuse, delicate spray of bright, dark green ; by lithe 
 mountain willows and spreading alders ; by pines that nod 
 and meet from cliff to cliff; balsams, spruces, white ce- 
 dars and junipers, which make the air as spicy as Tidore; 
 white, red, and holm oaks, extending their royal palms 
 in shadowy benediftion ; the beautiful white birch, like a 
 fair penitent trembling in her camisole ; and maples in- 
 numerable, whose youngest leaves, in their first unfold- 
 ing, simulate the dyes they put on in autumn, even as the 
 peace and beauty of childhood shadow forth the glorious 
 heaven at the end of a good life. Until within a few 
 days the beautiful clustering flowers of the laurel made 
 the woods gay with all shades of pink and white ; now the 
 ground is starry with blue-eyed grass, and snowy with the 
 little trumpets of the pipsissewa. The mountain-ashes 
 begin to ripen their coral ear-drops, the purple bells of 
 the foxglove, the later anenjones ; this is the season for 
 them all. Here are delicate maiden's-hair, and the sweet 
 lady-fern ; the plumy branches of the millefoil, which, but 
 for their commonness, would be prai.sed Hke any darling 
 of the green-house ; mosses of every shade and form, 
 from the great mass of living velvet which covers old de- 
 cay with the symbolic emerald of young immortality, to 
 the straggling duck's-foot patch of crisp little green, 
 which, close under the eaves of a waterfall, catches drops 
 
And the Region Around. 345 
 
 on its web, and turns them to beads of iridescent crystal. 
 The best way to see all that can be seen of this region is 
 to go to Haines Falls, by the road from above or from 
 below, up the steep ascent of a mile or more, in which 
 you pass a place where the road was carried away by a 
 tremendous land-sHde, broad and deep, which has left its 
 tawny scar on the breast of the ridge, from the place 
 where the road has been mended with earth and spruce- 
 trees, still distilling fragrance from their dead plumes, in 
 the sunshine, down to the bed of the creek, hundreds of 
 feet below. Here we pause and look back on the gorge 
 through which we have ascended, and have, too, a distant 
 glimpse of the valley of the Hudson, and the remote plains 
 and heights of western New England. 
 
 " The Haines Hoiuse, good-sized, cool, and piazzied, is 
 redolent of health, freshness, and morality. Following 
 the foot-path in the rear of the house to the wooded 
 brink of the Clove, you pass through a gate, to the stairs 
 leading down the deep descent. No one grudges the 
 twenty-five cents he here pays, when, after sending back a 
 man to the pond above, to let on its full stream of water, 
 and clambering down the green bowered stairways, two 
 hundred feet or more, with a drink, by the way, from a 
 spring in the pocket of the cliff, clear as crystal and cold 
 as ice, he stands on a broad, flat rock, where the cataradt 
 strikes. The fall has two leaps, the first of one hundred 
 and fifty feet, and the second of eighty, with a third one 
 below of sixty feet, and others still, so that in less than 
 one-fourth of a mile the stream falls four hundred and 
 seventy-five feet. The water at the two upper falls 
 breaks up into snowy masses, like ghosts of naiads, 
 plunging to the pool below, in a wreathed procession, 
 their shadowy arms upheld, and twining with each other 
 their misty finger-tips. Descending the brook, you pass 
 
346 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 over ledges and boulders of gray lichened stone, such as 
 Kensett loves and paints better than any man in America. 
 The falls are seven or eight in number; the third and 
 fourth of them, from a narrow flood at their brink, spread 
 in their descent over the sloping surface of the rocks, to 
 a broad and minutely broken sheet at the base, like a 
 web of pearl and silver gathered together at one end, in 
 the hand, and suflfered to flow over the surface of a ter- 
 raced cone, in exquisite folds and fringes. At the foot of 
 the fourth fall there is a covert of mossy and lichened 
 coolness, all silver-starred with dew, roofed in by huge 
 projecting tablets of rock, and at noon beautiful with an 
 arched portal of rainbow. This is a place to stay and 
 dream in all day. The fifth fall is higher, and from it you 
 can look backwards and see the whole' succession of cata- 
 radls you have descended. Winding a little to the left, 
 the snowy surface of the headlong brook seems one con- 
 tinuous tissue of foamy silver, now narrowing to a ribbon, 
 now spreading to a rainbowed sheet, curving down a 
 bowery vista of forest foliage, through which it reveals its 
 beauty in coy glimpses, without a single pool where it 
 stops to dally or to rest. This is the most lovely view I 
 have found in the CatskiUs. Over long, shady reaches, 
 where filtering sunshine strikes through the leaves the 
 crystal waters, climbing fallen obelisks, wading amber 
 pools, emulating Blondin on prostrate tree trunks, crawl- 
 ing, jurtjping, cHmbing, like chameleons, in fadl doing 
 everything but fly, we at length come to a wood-path, 
 leading through a green alley of birches to the road. 
 Down this gorge Giffbrd, McEntee and Whittridge have 
 often gone, and from it they have drawn some of their 
 happiest inspirations. Near the head of the Clove Gif- 
 ford must have stood to study one of his simplest and 
 most tender pi6lures— a view of the Clove, cradling a 
 
And the Region Around. 347 
 
 flood of summer sunlight, and clothed from bed to ridges 
 with one glory of living green, mellowed through golden 
 haze. 
 
 At the point where you leave the main road to go to 
 the North Mountain there is a path leading to the west, 
 and condudting one along the shady shore of the North 
 Lake to its head. 
 
 The path leading up the South Mountain begins near 
 the Mountain House, and just south of it, not far from 
 the eastern face of the mountain range. Two-thircis of 
 the way up the mountain, one enters Pudding-Stone Hall, 
 where are large masses of this kind of stone, and a nar- 
 row opening in the rocks, caused by the action of frost 
 and water. Beyond the hall, turning a little to the east, 
 the path then leads towards the west, under a cliff, through 
 a region of moss and fern, by the Portico Rocks, to the 
 Fairy Spring, a lonely and beautiful retreat. Returning a 
 short distance, and then inclining to the south, through a 
 narrow pass, in the rocks known as the Lemon Squeezer,, 
 or the Elfin Pass, the summit of South Mountain is soon 
 reached, from whence a large rock may be seen to the 
 south, where there is a fine view of the Clove, direftly 
 below — ^the Highlands, the Hudson River, and distant 
 mountains in New England, New Jersey, and New York, 
 Through a narrow pass in the rocks, a little east of this 
 point, is a rough path along the southern line of the lofty 
 precipices which overhang the Clove. There are also 
 pleasant paths along and near the western shores of both 
 of the lakes. There is a boat on the South Lake, with 
 which some amuse themselves, or are aided by it on their 
 way to the Falls, instead of walking through the beautiful 
 forest path^ or riding in an omnibus by the carriage-road 
 from the Mountain House. 
 
 From the Laurel House, take a path to the south-west, 
 
348 The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 which leads through the woods to Cosey Retreat, and then 
 inclining to the east, you come to Prospeft Bock, where is 
 a fine view of the Falls. Near the Laurel House and the 
 Laundry, the stream from the lakes and the other from the 
 North Mountain unite and form the Upper Cauterskill, 
 near which are the Maiden's Glen and the Enchanting 
 Vale. The Sunset Tree Is about two miles from the 
 Laurel House, in the direftion of Hunter, with the Bear 
 Track below, while the high peaks beyond the Clove, 
 Buttermilk Falls, and Santa Cruz Creek, at their base, 
 the Valley of Hunter, the mountains beyond, and to the 
 east, the Valley of the Hudson, may all be seen from this 
 point of view. The Trout Brook is a miountain stream 
 which is crossed in passing from the Mountain House to 
 the Laurel House, and flowing east of the latter place. 
 Near its source are Juniper Springs, about two miles from 
 the road. 
 
 The principal places for trout-fishing in the mountains 
 are Stony Clove and Warner's Kill. A few years since? 
 some young friends of the author caught in Stony Clove 
 1, 600 trout in a fishing excursion there of a few days, fifty 
 of the largest of which weighed thirty pounds. More re- 
 cently, two of the same party caught 700 trout in Warner's 
 Kill, in a single day. This kill, or creek, is reached by 
 passing through Stony Clove to near its southern extrem- 
 ity, and then turning to the left up the kill and its branches, 
 which flow through a long winding mountain ravine, lead- 
 ing to the south-east, towards the eastern front of the moun- 
 tains. Gray's Hotel, some miles west of the Clove, on the 
 way to Hunter, is a favorite resort of fishermen, as Stony 
 Clove and Warner's Kill are nearer there than to other 
 hotels in the mountains, while the Haines House and 
 Bracket's are more resorted to by artists. 
 
 Plattekill Clove is some six miles south of Cauterskill 
 
And the Reg-ion Around. 349 
 
 Clove, and may be entered from the lowlands at the eastern 
 base of the mountains, or from the upper heights to tlie 
 west. The old road through the Plattekille Clove, which 
 overhangs the fearful chasm and raging stream on the 
 right, as you descend the mountain, is a very rude 
 and rough one. On the other side of the dark ravine, 
 however, is a new road, from the base of the moun- 
 tains upward, which is much easier of ascent than the 
 other. To see either of the two great cloves, however, to 
 the best advantage, no other carriages should be used in 
 passing through them than Adam and Eve had in Eden, 
 well shod with thick boots ; and instead of fig-leaves, 
 clothing short, strong, and hoopless, unless ladies, on their 
 return froni their mountain strolls, would look as if they 
 had just escaped from a rag-bin. 
 
 Richards, speaking of the Plattekill Clove, says : " It is 
 scarcely less fruitful in the pi6luresque than is the Cauters- 
 kill, while it retains more of its native luxuriance and 
 wildness. The stream which makes its rugged way in the 
 gorge of the Plattekille, in the course of two miles falls 
 two thousand five hundred feet. Its banks rise in colossal 
 mountain walls, towering high in air, and groaning, with 
 all their mighty strength, beneath the weight of their dense 
 forests. A monarch among these hills is South Peak, with 
 its crown lifted four thousand feet towards heaven. It is 
 full of remarkable localities, each wrapped in legendary 
 lore. Not the least lovely of its possessions is a gentle 
 lake, perched in solitude upon its summits." 
 
 Those who have gone from tlie house of the author to 
 the Plattekill Clove have given it the precedence of all 
 the mountain scenery, in its rugged gran.deur and wild and 
 widely-varied magnificence and beauty. A pool, some 
 ten feet by thirty, and ten feet deep, at the foot of a cas- 
 cade, with overhanging rocks, and lofty trees meeting 
 
3 so The Catskill Mountains, 
 
 above, giving the clear waters a deep green hue, was 
 named by them, Emerald Pool. 
 
 In closing these sketches of mountain scenery, with its 
 imposing and alluring grandeur, magnificence, and beauty, 
 there rises yet again to the mind the higher moral and 
 religious grandeur connected with those mountain heights 
 which, as in past ages and in other lands, have been a 
 refuge from persecution, oppression, and wrong ; a strong 
 tower and a rock of defence to those who, thus sheltered, 
 have looked down in safety on their foes below. From 
 such mountain fastnesses, too, how have those who there 
 bravely fought for their liberties and lives, like William 
 Tell, and others, noble patriots and grand old Christian 
 heroes, driven down and destroyed the armed hosts who 
 had pursued them thither ; and in their hour of viftory 
 have made the wild ravines and cliffs to loudly echo back 
 their joyful hymns of triumph and of praise, as with 
 thoughts and words like those of the Waldensian saints 
 and heroes, from their hearts they sang : 
 
 " For the strength of the hills we bless thee. 
 
 Our God — our fathers* God ; 
 Thou hast made thy children mighty 
 
 By tile touch of the mountain sod ; 
 Thou hast fixed our rock of refuge 
 
 Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod ; 
 For tlie strength of the hills we bless tliee, 
 
 Our God — our fathers' God. 
 
 * We are watchers of a beacon, 
 
 Whose light must never die ; 
 We are guardians of an altar 
 
 Midst the silence of the sky . 
 The rocks yield founts of courage, 
 
 Sti-uck forth as by thy rod ; 
 For the strength of the hills ire bless thee, 
 
 Our God— our fatheiV God. 
 
A7td the Region Around. 351 
 
 " For the dark surrounding caverns, 
 
 Where the still small voice is heard ; 
 For the strong pines of the forest, 
 
 Which by thy strength is stirred ; 
 For the storm on whose free pinions 
 
 Thy Spirit walks abroad ; 
 For the strength of the liills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God — our fathers' God. 
 
 " The royal e<^le darteth 
 
 From lofty mountain heights ; 
 The stag that knows no master 
 
 Seeks there his wild delights ; 
 But we for thy communion 
 
 Have sought the mountain sod ; 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God — our fathers' God. 
 
 " The banner of the chieftain 
 
 Far, far below us waves ; 
 The warhorse of the spearman 
 
 Cannot reach our loft>' caves ; 
 The dark clouds wrap the threshold 
 
 Of freedom's last abode ; 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee. 
 
 Our God — our fathers' God. 
 
 " For the shadow of thy presence 
 
 Round our mountain camp is spread ; 
 For the stem defiles of battle 
 
 Where IJ^ our fallen dead ; 
 For the snows and for the torrents, 
 
 For the free heart's burial sod ; » 
 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 0\M God — our fathers' God."