Wallace Bruce - The Hudson

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

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

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

* * * * *

THE HUDSON

Three Centuries of
History, Romance and Invention

BY WALLACE BRUCE

Centennial Edition

Published by
BRYANT UNION COMPANY
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1907 BY WALLACE BRUCE

CONTENTS.

CENTENNIAL GREETING.
PAGE

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

NEW YORK TO ALBANY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE UPPER HUDSON.

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON'S "CLERMONT" 1807]

1907--1909

_CENTENNIAL GREETING_

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

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

"_Hendrick Hudson_," _1906_.

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

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

* * *

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

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

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

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

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

* * *

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

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

[Illustration: _Hendrick Hudson's "Half Moon_."]

THE HUDSON

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

* * *

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

_Hendrick Hudson_

* * *

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

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

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

* * *

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

_William Wallace._

* * *

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

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

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

* * *

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

_Anthony Trollope._

* * *

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

* * *

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

_Richard Burton_

* * *

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

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

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

* * *

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

_Robert C. Sands._

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

The prow of the "Half-Moon" has left a broadening wake whose
ripples have written an indelible history, not only along the
Hudson's shores, but have left their imprint on kingdoms over the
sea.

_William Wait._

* * *

=Its Discovery.=--In the year 1524, thirty-two years after the
discovery of America, the navigator Verrazano, a French officer,
anchored off the island of Manhattan and proceeded a short distance up
the river. The following year, Gomez, a Portuguese in the employ of
Spain, coasted along the continent and entered the Narrows. Several
sea-rovers also visited our noble bay about 1598, but it was reserved
for Hendrick Hudson, with a mixed crew of eighteen or twenty men in
the "Half Moon," to explore the river from Sandy Hook to Albany, and
carry back to Europe a description of its beauty. He had previously
made two fruitless voyages for the Muscovy Company--an English
corporation--in quest of a passage to China, _via_ the North Pole and
Nova Zembla.

In the autumn of 1608 he was called to Amsterdam, and sailed from
Texel, April 5, 1609, in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
Reaching Greenland he coasted southward, arriving at Cape Cod August
6th, Chesapeake Bay August 28th, and then sailed north to Sandy Hook.
He entered the Bay of New York September the 3d, passed through the
Narrows, and anchored in what is now called Newark Bay; on the 12th
resumed his voyage, and, drifting with the tide, remained over night
on the 13th about three miles above the northern end of Manhattan
Island; on the 14th sailed through what is now known as Tappan Zee and
Haverstraw Bay, entered the Highlands and anchored for the night near
the present dock of West Point. On the morning of the 15th beheld
Newburgh Bay, reached Catskill on the 16th, Athens on the 17th,
Castleton and Albany on the 18th, and sent out an exploring boat as
far as Waterford. He became thoroughly satisfied that this route did
not lead to China--a conclusion in harmony with that of Champlain,
who, the same summer, had been making his way south, through Lake
Champlain and Lake George, in quest of the South Sea.

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