America Volume III Part 7

The astute Albany philosophers of those days believed heat descended from above. The bell-rope hung from the little steeple down into the centre of the church, and here, at eight o'clock at night, was rung the "supp.a.w.n bell," a signal to the obedient people to eat their "supp.a.w.n" or hasty pudding, and go to bed. Albany in the olden time had a quaint aspect because of the predominance of steep-roofed houses, with their terraced gables, but many of them have given way for modern improvements. Upon State Street, at the corner of James, lived in one of these the famous Anneke Jans Bogardus, who died there in 1663, the owner of the lands in New York city now partly held by Trinity Church, which her heirs have acquired so much notoriety in trying to recover. A bank now occupies the site. Albany has had some interesting history. In 1754 the Congress met here which was the first colonial organization, and finally developed into the Continental Congress. Seven colonies, north of Maryland, sent twenty-five Commissioners, who made a treaty with the Iroquois, the Indian league of the "Six Nations." Afterwards, under the guidance of Benjamin Franklin, a plan was adopted for a union of the colonies, its provisions being much similar to the United States Const.i.tution of 1787. Thus the germ of the American Union was first developed at Albany. Her influences have been powerful in politics. For many years the "Albany Regency" controlled the old Democratic party, this name having been given by Thurlow Weed, then editor of the _Albany Evening Journal_, to a junta of politicians usually a.s.sembling there, headed by Martin Van Buren. Subsequently, another combination at Albany was potential in ruling the Whigs and in controlling the Republican party--the political firm of "Seward, Weed and Greeley." Albany manoeuvres managed to control the preliminaries that twice made Grover Cleveland President; and in both parties the Albany political "patroons" are still industriously at work.

Among the finest Albany buildings is the magnificent new Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints, an English Gothic structure, as yet incomplete, which will be one of the most beautiful churches in America. In the southern part of the city is the Schuyler Mansion, built in 1760, a brick house with a broad front, having a closed octagonal porch over the doorway and s.p.a.cious apartments; its lawns in the olden time reaching to the Hudson, where now the city is densely built. Peter Schuyler was the first Mayor of Albany, and his descendant, General Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, occupied a large s.p.a.ce in New York history. In this house Alexander Hamilton was married to Elizabeth Schuyler, and a subsequent owner, Mrs. McIntosh, was made the wife of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States.

General Schuyler and his family always dispensed a princely hospitality in this mansion. In 1781, towards the close of the Revolution, it was the scene of a stirring event. The British, discovering that Schuyler was at home, tried to capture him. The house was then distant from the small town and surrounded by forests. A party of Canadians and Indians prowled for several days in the woods, and capturing a laborer, learnt that the General was in the house with a bodyguard of six men. The laborer escaped afterwards and notified the General. Upon a sultry day in August, when three of the guards were asleep in the bas.e.m.e.nt and the other three lying on the gra.s.s in front of the house, a servant announced that a stranger at the back gate wished to speak with the General. The errand being apprehended, the doors and windows were barred, the family collected up stairs, and the General hastened to his bedchamber for his arms. From the window he saw the place surrounded by armed men, and fired a pistol to arouse the guards on the gra.s.s and alarm the town. At this moment the enemy burst open the doors, when Mrs. Schuyler suddenly discovered she had left her infant in the cradle in the hall below. She rushed to the rescue, but the General stopped her. One of her daughters then quickly ran down stairs, and carried the infant up in safety. An Indian who had entered hurled a tomahawk, as she rushed up the stairs, which cut her dress within a few inches of the baby's head, and striking the hand-rail made a deep scar. As she ran up stairs, the Tory commander, thinking her a servant, called out, "Wench, where is your master?"

With great presence of mind she quickly replied, "Gone to alarm the town." General Schuyler heard her, and taking advantage, threw up a window, crying out loudly, as if to a mult.i.tude, "Come on, my brave fellows, surround the house and secure the villains!" The marauders, who were then plundering the plate in the dining-room, becoming frightened, beat a hasty retreat, taking prisoners the three guards who were in the house. The brave daughter, who made the gallant rescue, afterwards became the wife of the last Patroon Van Rensselaer, while the infant she saved lived until 1857, and was Schuyler's last surviving child, Mrs. Catharine Cochran of Oswego, New York. General Schuyler is buried in the beautiful Albany Rural Cemetery, north of the city, and nearby is Palmer's famous figure of the "Angel at the Sepulchre." Here is also the tomb of President Chester A. Arthur, who died in 1886.

THE MODERN TROY.

Travelling northward along the Hudson, the broad basin where the Erie Ca.n.a.l comes out to the river is pa.s.sed, being s.h.i.+elded by a pier eighty feet wide and nearly a mile long. Here is the vast storehouse for Canadian and Adirondack lumber brought by the ca.n.a.ls, a leading Albany industry, there being ten miles of dockage within this basin for the lumber barges. The Erie Ca.n.a.l from the west, and also the Champlain Ca.n.a.l from the north, here have their outlets into the Hudson. Both sides of the river are lined with villages between Albany and Troy--there being Greenbush, East Albany, Bath, Troy and West Troy, and beyond, Lansingburgh and Waterford at the confluence of the Mohawk. This series of cities and towns stretching for ten miles along the sh.o.r.es, with intervals of farm land, have an aggregate population exceeding three hundred thousand, with large manufactures and commerce. There are extensive iron mills on the river and upon Green Island in front of Troy, where General Gates had the camp for his Revolutionary army which fought Burgoyne at Saratoga. Upon the western bank is the Watervliet a.r.s.enal, where the government manufactures army supplies, an enclosure of over a hundred acres. Troy is a fringe of city extending along the eastern bank and up the steep ridge behind, crowned by the imposing Byzantine buildings and spires of St. Joseph's Theological Seminary. This high ridge, bordering the alluvial flat on which the modern Troy is built, thoroughly carries out the Grecian idea which was adopted to supersede the original Dutch name of Vanderheyden which was given the town. From the northeast Mount Olympus and from the east Mount Ida frown upon Troy, and this modern Mount Ida does not hesitate at times to hurl down Jove's thunderbolts in the form of destructive landslips. Derick Vanderheyden leased this estate from the Patroon in 1720, and it slept in Dutch peacefulness until after the Revolution, when in 1789 it had twelve dwellings and the freeholders adopted the present name. Just before this, Jacob Vanderheyden had removed to Albany to occupy his "Palace." The opening of the Erie Ca.n.a.l gave Troy great prosperity. It has fine water-power, and thus became a busy manufacturing centre. Here are the great Albany and Rensselaer Iron Works, which were famous makers of armor plates and cannon in the Civil War, and the Berdan Horseshoe Mill, the largest in the country, which has the biggest water-wheel, eighty feet in diameter, turned by one of the kills coming down from the mountain behind the town. It was here that John Ericsson built the little "Monitor" ironclad which defeated the "Merrimac" at Fortress Monroe in 1862. There are also great textile mills and a vast laundry. Its famous Polytechnic Inst.i.tute is an endowment of the last Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was Troy's steady benefactor.

THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE.

The Mohawk, its princ.i.p.al tributary, flows into the Hudson just above Troy, and each, being a mountain torrent, has brought down large alluvial deposits making extensive flats between the hills, so that their junction is marked by fertile islands and low sh.o.r.es, backed by picturesque ridges bordering broad valleys. Here are Green Island, Adam's Island and Van Schaick's Island, making an extensive delta. The Mohawk, after flowing from central New York nearly one hundred and forty miles in a rich agricultural section, pours down the falls at Cohoes, and enters the Hudson through four separate channels formed by these islands. The Mohawk Valley is largely a pastoral region, its dairies and cheeses having much fame, and in the lower valley hop-growing and broom-making are important industries, chiefly controlled by the Shakers. At one of their settlements, about six miles northwest of Albany, their foundress, "Mother Ann," who died in 1784, is buried. The Hudson flows to its confluence with the Mohawk, with generally rapid current, bordered by rich plains, as it is ascended to Stillwater, and thirteen miles beyond, to Schuylerville, where Fish Creek comes in, the outlet of Saratoga Lake.

Here is a region of great historic interest, for through it marched Sir John Burgoyne's army in 1777 to disastrous defeat. At and above Stillwater, and Bemis's Heights beyond, was the scene of his closing conflict, while Schuylerville stands upon the site of his camp at the time of his final surrender. General Schuyler, from whom the village is named, was then the owner of the entire domain of Saratoga.

Burgoyne had come south from Canada to meet another British force thought to be advancing up the Hudson from New York, the design being to cut the rebellious colonies in two and defeat them in detail. The rebels hung upon Burgoyne's flanks, and at Bennington, Vermont, Stark's bold movement in August captured a large force of Hessians.

Schuyler sent Arnold up the Mohawk, who cut off another detachment under St. Leger, who had come over from Oswego, intending to make a detour to Albany. In September, Burgoyne came to Saratoga, and had his first contest south of the springs, with the Americans under Gates.

Afterwards, each army encamped within cannon-shot of the other until October 7th, Burgoyne all the while hoping for some diversion from the lower Hudson. The British camp was on the river below Schuylerville, and on that day they marched out to give battle, Burgoyne's chief lieutenant, General Fraser, directing the movements. Fraser was in full uniform, mounted upon an iron-gray steed, and became a most conspicuous object. Colonel Morgan, who had a force of Virginia sharpshooters, perceived this, and calling a number of his best men around him, pointed to the British right wing, which was making a victorious advance under Fraser's inspiration, and said: "That gallant officer is General Fraser; I admire and honor him, but it is necessary he should die; victory for the enemy depends on him; take your stations in that clump of bushes and do your duty." Within five minutes afterwards he was mortally wounded. His aid, recognizing that he was a conspicuous mark, had just observed: "Would it not be prudent for you to retire from this place?" and he had scarcely got the reply out of his mouth, "My duty forbids me to fly from danger," when he was shot. He survived throughout the night, and asked to be buried in a redoubt he had built on a hill near the Hudson. He died next day, and at sunset a funeral procession moved towards the redoubt. The Americans saw it, and, ignorant of what it meant, cannonaded, but desisted on learning the mournful object; and then a single cannon, fired at intervals, reverberated along the Hudson; an American minute-gun in memory of a brave soldier.

Fraser's fall caused the British defeat, and they afterwards abandoned guns and baggage trains and retreated north to Schuylerville.

Burgoyne's provisions gave out, many auxiliaries deserted him, the camp was incessantly cannonaded, and finally, with his forces reduced below six thousand men, on October 17th, he surrendered. It was said at the time, in the British Parliament, that the campaign thus ended "had left the country stripped of nearly every evidence of civilized occupation," and in its result it was declared to be "one of the fifteen decisive battles of the world." There were six members of Parliament among the captive officers, and Burgoyne gave up forty-two bra.s.s cannon. His army was held in captivity nearly five years, till the end of the war, at first near Boston, and later in Virginia. This victory was the turning-point of the Revolution. Among its results were, an appreciation of twenty per cent. in Continental money; the bold stand of Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke in Parliament, denouncing the method of conducting the war; the sending of cheering words to the struggling colonies by Spain, Holland, Russia and the Vatican; and the paving of the way for France to acknowledge the independence of the United States--all the result, under Providence, of Fraser's indiscreet devotion to duty. In the neighborhood is the great Methodist camp-meeting ground of Round Lake, and farther on b.a.l.l.ston Spa, where the Kayaderosseras Creek winds through a beautifully shaded valley and flows into Saratoga Lake. In the early part of the nineteenth century this was the greatest watering-place in America, its waters being chemically similar to those of Saratoga. Its Sans Souci Hotel, opened in 1804, was then the grandest in the country, and here were hatched most of the political schemes of the days of Presidents Madison, Monroe and Jackson, the "Albany Regency" in its palmiest days flouris.h.i.+ng throughout the summer time on its lawns and porches. But much of b.a.l.l.ston's glory has departed, eclipsed by the newer radiance of its great neighbor, six miles away. The Saratoga Lake is three miles east of b.a.l.l.ston, an oval-shaped lake eight miles long, from which Fish Creek meanders off to the Hudson at Schuylerville. As the fishes thus ascended from the river into the lake, the Indians named it Saraghoga, or "the place of the herrings."

SARATOGA.

The famous watering-place, Saratoga, is a comparatively small town upon a level and somewhat barren plateau. A short distance north of Saratoga Lake, with a boulevard and electric road connecting them, is the shallow valley wherein are the famous mineral springs. Their virtues were long known to the Iroquois, and when the renowned French explorer Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence in 1535, searching for the "northwest pa.s.sage," the Indians on the river bank told him about these springs and their wonderful cures. The Mohawks, who had these waters in their special keeping, regarded them with veneration.

In August, 1767, their great English friend and adopted sachem, Sir William Johnson, who is said to have been the father of a hundred children, was suffering from re-opened wounds received in battle, and the tribe held a solemn council and determined to take him to this "medicine spring of the Great Spirit." They carried him on a litter many miles to the "High Rock Spring," and he was the first white man who saw it. His strength was regained in four days, and he wrote General Schuyler, "I have just returned from a most amazing spring which almost effected my cure." This spring, coming out of its conical rock reservoir, much like a diminutive geyser, and then called the "Round Rock Spring," was the first one known. There were occasional visitors during the Revolution, and the cutting of a road some time afterwards from the Mohawk through the forests to reach it, opened the place to the public. To-day, Saratoga is an aggregation of some of the greatest hotels in the world, with many smaller ones and numerous cottages. There is a permanent population of about twelve thousand, often swollen to fifty thousand in August and September, the "season."

A shallow valley contains most of the springs, around which the town cl.u.s.ters, with extensive suburbs of wooden houses, groves and gardens.

The valley is crossed by the chief street, Broadway, a magnificent avenue, one hundred and fifty feet wide, with s.p.a.cious sidewalks shaded by rows of grand old elms and, in the centre of the settlement, bordered by enormous hotels. The greatest of these is the famous Grand Union, a vast structure of iron and brick, fronting eight hundred feet on Broadway, and having over two thousand beds, the largest watering-place hotel in the world. A garden and park are enclosed by its s.p.a.cious wings, and here fountains plash and bands play, while the visitors promenade or sit and gossip upon the extensive piazzas. Its front piazza, spreading along Broadway, is eight hundred feet long and three stories high. Its dining-hall is two hundred and seventy-five feet long and sixty feet wide, the largest in existence, and seats seventeen hundred people at table. The United States Hotel, north of the Grand Union, and Congress Hall, across Broadway, are also enormous caravansaries, and in busy times these three hotels will accommodate over six thousand guests, the cost of running each of them for one day being $7500 to $10,000. Everything in these gigantic hotels is arranged upon a scale of splendor and immensity almost requiring a railway train to take the visitor about them.

Many of the twenty-eight mineral springs of Saratoga border Broadway or are near it, and the most noted, the "Congress" and the "Hathorn,"

are on either side of Congress Hall, thus being easy of access. The geologists say these springs rise from a line of "fault," which brings the slaty formations of the Hudson River against the sandstones and limestones that are above. They are generally muriated saline springs of about 50 temperature, the Congress Spring having about the strength of Kissingen Racoczy, but a milder taste, while the Hathorn Spring, its great rival, contains more chloride of sodium and iron.

Some of the springs are chalybeate, others sulphurous or iodinous, and all are highly charged with carbonic acid gas. The Saratoga Seltzer resembles the seltzer of Germany, and the Geyser Spring is so highly charged that when drawn from a faucet it foams like soda water. The waters are both tonic and cathartic. The "High Rock Spring" bubbles up through an aperture in a conical rock composed of calcareous tufa, which has been formed by the deposits from the waters. This rock is four feet high, with a rounded top, in the centre of which is a circular opening a foot in diameter. The depth of the spring from the present top of the rock is thirty-two feet. The waters used to overflow occasionally and increase the size of the rock by the deposits, but a tree was blown down and cracked the rock, since which the waters will only rise to about six inches below the top. A paG.o.da covers it, beneath which water is ladled out to the thirsty. The Congress Spring is in a tasteful park, having this and the Columbian Spring under an elaborate pavilion. This Congress Spring was found by a hunting party who went through the valley in 1792, and named it in honor of a member of Congress who was with them. To this park go the crowds in the morning before breakfast to drink the waters, which are freely furnished either cold or hot, and music plays while the people drink gla.s.s after gla.s.s. Each pint of Congress water contains about seventy-five grains of mineral const.i.tuents and forty-nine cubic inches of carbonic acid gas. It is cathartic and alterative. The Columbian Spring has much more iron, and is a tonic and diuretic. The Hathorn Spring is in a large building adjoining Broadway, and was found when digging for the foundations of a new house. It is a powerful cathartic, containing nearly ninety-four grains of mineral const.i.tuents and forty-seven cubic inches of carbonic acid gas in each pint, and it is also a tonic and diuretic. The chief medicinal rivalries of Saratoga have been based upon the respective merits of the Congress and Hathorn waters, and great controversy has at times been thus inspired.

There are other noted springs--the Hamilton, a mild cathartic; the Putnam, chalybeate, and having a bathing establishment; the Pavilion, a cathartic; the United States, a mild, agreeable tonic; and the Seltzer, rising through a tube several feet high, over the rim of which it flows, a sparkling and invigorating drink. The Empire closely resembles Congress water; the Red Spring is charged with much iron; and the Saratoga "A" Spring is a mild cathartic. Then there are the Saratoga Vichy, Saratoga Kissingen, Carlsbad, Magnetic, Imperial, Royal, Star, Excelsior, Eureka, White Sulphur and Geyser Springs, most of them in the outskirts. The Geyser spouts twenty-five feet high, is deliciously cold, and exhilarates like champagne. The Glacier Spring nearby was found by sinking an artesian well three hundred feet; its waters spout high above the tube, and are powerfully cathartic. There are six spouting springs, the Geyser being the best known; but of all the springs of Saratoga, the waters of barely a half-dozen are much used. The Congress, Empire and Hathorn Springs send their bottled waters all over the world. The springs are all wonderfully clear and sparkling, most of the waters pleasant to drink, and it is such a Saratoga fas.h.i.+on to go about imbibing and tasting these waters of rival virtues, that the visitors sometimes get into a plethoric condition that becomes uncomfortable if not dangerous. But the springs are not the chief attraction of Saratoga, and in fact the veteran visitors do not partake of them at all, but freely confess that they come not to drink the waters, but to see the life and be "in the swim," for in the season the crowd at Saratoga, unlike anywhere else, includes the leaders of all sets. The proximity of the Adirondacks gives the bracing ozone of mountain air, and in the cosmopolitan throng is generally included the best the country can show of fas.h.i.+on and wealth. It is a great place for holding all kinds of conventions, and many are the political, corporation and stock-jobbing schemes hatched on the great hotel piazzas. It is also famous for dresses and diamonds, and wonderful is the elaborateness of millinery, gowns and jewels. The glitter of diamonds dazzles at every turn as they sparkle under the brilliant electric lights illuminating the evening scene. It was said not long ago, in a description of Saratoga, that if the Grand Union Hotel should ever perish in the height of the season, with all it contains, the future explorer who might delve in its ruins would come upon the rarest diamond mine the world ever knew.

Upon Saratoga Lake is the famous restaurant where "Saratoga chips"

were invented and are served, this route being a favorite drive for the people who attend the numerous conventions, for whose use an elaborate Convention Hall has been erected on Broadway, seating five thousand persons. On the western sh.o.r.e of the lake, just where the Kayaderosseras River flows in from b.a.l.l.ston, is pointed out the battlefield on which the legend says that in the days of the warlike Mohawks and fierce Mohicans they had a deadly combat, a thousand warriors being engaged, when suddenly the Great Spirit sent a miraculous white dove over the lake and battlefield, having such an effect that the conflict ceased, their tomahawks fell useless at their feet, and they smoked the calumet of peace. To the northward of Saratoga is the extensive Woodlawn Park, the home of the late Judge Henry Hilton. Ten miles northward is Mount McGregor, rising twelve hundred feet and giving a magnificent view. It was here that General Grant was taken in his last illness in 1885, and the cottage in which he died is now the property of New York State and open to the public.

FORT EDWARD.

The upper Hudson River has various falls providing good water-power, which are largely availed of by paper-mills. The famous Fort Edward, one of these noted paper-making towns, is but a short distance from Saratoga. The railroad, leading from Saratoga and the south to Lake Champlain and the north, here crosses the Hudson in a region of great historic interest. This was the beginning of the portage in early times between the river and the lake, the railway route following the ancient Indian trail. The two waters are actually connected by the Champlain Ca.n.a.l, and, curiously enough, this makes New England an island, thus realizing the belief of the original explorers. Rev.

Robert Cushman, who preached the first sermon before the Ma.s.sachusetts Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, afterwards published it with an introduction describing New England, in which he says: "So far as we can find, it is an island, and near about the quant.i.ty of England, being cut out from the mainland in America, as England is from the main of Europe, by a great arm of the sea (Hudson's River) which entereth in forty degrees and runneth up northwest and by west, and goeth out either into the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) or else into the Bay of Canada (Gulf of St. Lawrence)." There can still be seen at Fort Edward traces of the ramparts of the old fort commanding the portage, which was held and fought for in the eighteenth century. Originally a n.o.ble domain around it of one thousand square miles was granted to "our loving subject, the Reverend G.o.dfridius Dellius, Minister of the Gospell att our city of Albany," for "the annual rent of one Racc.o.o.n Skin." The old gentleman, however, fell from grace, and the domain was taken away from him and the New York Legislature suspended him from the ministry for "deluding the Mohawk Indians, and illegal and surrept.i.tious obtaining of said grant." Then it went to his successor, Rev. John Lydius, who lived in the quaint "Lydius House" in Albany.

The first fort was built soon after Lydius took possession, and in 1744 he established a fur-trading station. A military road was then constructed from Saratoga to Whitehall on Lake Champlain, here crossing the river, and it was commanded by three forts, one at this crossing. The French destroyed the first fort, but Sir William Johnson made a successful expedition into the Lake Champlain district in 1755, and built here the strong post of Fort Edward. It was an important work during the whole French and Indian War, lasting seven years, and it was here that Lord Amherst organized the army which conquered Canada in 1759.

At Fort Edward first appeared as a British soldier one of the greatest heroes of the Revolution, Israel Putnam. He had joined Sir William Johnson's expedition as captain in a Connecticut regiment. He performed here a daring exploit; the wooden barracks had caught fire and the garrison vainly tried to subdue the flames, which approached the powder magazine, and the danger was frightful. The water-gate was opened, and the soldiers in line pa.s.sed buckets of water up from the river, when Putnam mounted the roof of the next building to the magazine and threw the water on the fire. The commander, fearing for his life, ordered him to desist, but he would not leave until he felt the roof giving away. Then he got alongside the magazine, its timbers already charred, and hurled bucket after bucket upon it, with final success, the magazine being saved and an explosion prevented. The fire was quenched, but the burnt and blistered hero was for a month a sufferer in the hospital. Putnam had an adventure at the rapids a few miles below Fort Edward, where he was out with a scouting party, and being alongside the bank alone in his boat, was surprised by the Indians. He could not cross the river above the rapids quickly enough to elude their muskets, and the only escape was down the cataract.

Without hesitation, to the astonishment of the savages, his boat shot directly down the foaming, whirling current, amid eddies and over rugged rocks, and in a few moments he had escaped them, and was floating on the tranquil river below. Believing him to be protected by the Great Spirit, they dared not follow. Shortly afterwards, returning from a scout on Lake Champlain, Putnam's party was surprised, and the Indians captured and bound him to a tree. While thus situated, a battle between his friends and the enemy raged for an hour around the tree, he being under the hottest fire, but he was unscathed. The Indians were beaten and had to retreat, but they took their captive along, determined to have vengeance by roasting him alive. He was again tied to a tree, and the fire had been kindled and was blazing when the French commander, Molang, discovered and rescued him. Thus was Putnam seasoned for his great work in the Revolution.

The tragic murder of poor Jenny McCrea is also a.s.sociated with Fort Edward. This post in the Revolution was held in 1777 by an American garrison, who retired before the advance of Burgoyne's army southward. Jenny McCrea, the graceful and winning daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, who was betrothed to an officer in Burgoyne's army, was visiting a widow lady at Fort Edward. In order to secure Indian co-operation, Burgoyne had offered bounties for prisoners and scalps, at the same time forbidding the killing of unarmed persons. He found it difficult, however, to restrain the savages, who went about in small bodies seeking captives, and one of these parties, prowling around Fort Edward, entered the house where Jenny was staying and carried off Jenny and her friend. An alarm was given, and troops sent after them. The Indians had caught two horses, on one of which Jenny was mounted, when the pursuers a.s.sailed them with a volley of bullets.

The Indians were unhurt, but the fair captive was mortally wounded and fell, and, as tradition relates, expired at the foot of a huge pine tree, which remained a memorial of the tragedy for nearly a century.

The savages thus lost their prisoner, but they quickly scalped her, and taking her long black tresses, bathed in blood, to Burgoyne's camp, they claimed reward. They were accused of her murder, but denied it, and the horrid tale, magnified by repet.i.tion, caused the greatest indignation. General Gates issued an address, charging Burgoyne with hiring savages to scalp Europeans and their descendants, and describing Jenny as having been "dressed to meet her promised husband, but met her murderers." For this crime, it was added, Burgoyne had "paid the price of blood." Poor Jenny's murder, with Burgoyne's defeat, was employed most effectively by the opposition in the British House of Commons, Chatham and Burke eloquently denouncing the barbarity and merciless cruelties of his unfortunate campaign. Her lover declined longer to stay in Burgoyne's army, but retired to Canada, living there till old age. Jenny's remains are interred in the beautiful cemetery overlooking the Hudson above Fort Edward, marked by a monument recording her murder by a band of Indians at the age of seventeen, and reciting that the memorial was erected "To record one of the most thrilling incidents in the annals of the American Revolution; to do justice to the fame of the gallant British officer to whom she was affianced; and as a simple tribute to the memory of the departed." This gentle maiden's sacrifice was of priceless value in producing the revulsion of sentiment in Europe that had so much to do with the final success of the Revolution.

BAKER'S FALLS AND GLEN'S FALLS.

In coming to Fort Edward, the Hudson River sweeps around a grand curve from the west towards the south, much of its course over cascades and down rapids that are lined with mills. In a mile it descends eighty feet, these rapids being known as Baker's Falls, and just above is the village of Sandy Hill, having in its centre a pleasant elm-shaded green. Here was enacted a tragedy, in some respects rivalling the tale of Pocahontas. A party of sixteen, carrying supplies to Lake George, was surprised and captured by Indians, and taken to the trunk of a fallen tree on the spot where is now the village green, bound by hickory withes and seated in a row. The savages then began at the end of the row and tomahawked them one after another until only two remained, Lieutenant McGinnis commanding the party and a young teamster named Quackenboss. The tomahawk was brandished over the former, when he threw himself backward and tried to break his bonds. A dozen tomahawks instantly gleamed over him, and lying on his back he defended himself with his heels, but he was soon hacked to death.

Quackenboss alone remained, and the deadly hatchet was raised over his head, when suddenly the arm of the savage was seized by a squaw, who cried, "You shall not kill him; he no fighter; he my dog." They spared him to become a beast of burden. Staggering under a pack of plunder almost too heavy to carry, they marched him towards Canada, the Indians bearing his companions' scalps as trophies. They sailed along Lake Champlain in canoes, and at the first Indian village at which they halted he was compelled to "run the gauntlet." He ran between rows of savages armed with heavy clubs, who beat him, an ordeal in which he was severely injured. The Indian woman, however, took him to her wigwam, bound up his wounds, and carefully nursed him until he recovered. He was ultimately ransomed, obtaining employment in Montreal. Finally returning to his home, he lived to a ripe old age, telling of his adventures until he died in 1820.

Following the curving Hudson River bank around to the westward, another series of rapids and cascades is ascended to the thriving manufacturing town of Glen's Falls. This magnificent cataract pours through a wild ravine having over seventy feet descent, the water flowing upon rough ma.s.ses of black marble composing the rocky terraces the stream has broken down. The Mohicans had significant names for this famous cataract. One was Kayandorossa, meaning the "long deep hole," applied to the ravine; and another, Che-pon-tuc, or "hard climbing; a difficult place to get around." Along the north side of the ravine, upon a beautiful plain, is the manufacturing settlement of about ten thousand people, who use the admirable water-power and get the black marble out of adjacent quarries. Vast numbers of logs coming down the Hudson are gathered in a boom above the town, and sawmills cut them into lumber. Paper-mills cl.u.s.ter about the falls, and marble-saws work up the black rocks. In the centre of the ravine, above the falls, a cavern is hewn where a rocky islet makes a rude abutment for a bridge pier. Father Jogues, who came over from Lake George in 1645, was the first white man who saw this attractive region, and he wrote that the Indians then called the Hudson "Oi-o-gue" or "the beautiful river," while the Hollanders, settled on it farther down, had named it the "river Van Maurice." When the Dutch made their first explorations they found that the lower Mohawk and the upper valley of the Hudson, with the country northward extending into the Adirondacks, was the home of the Mohicans, an Algonquin tribe, and always at war with the Mohawks, their western neighbors higher up that valley. It was thought probable that with a view of securing a.s.sistance in this inveterate feud, the Mohicans received the Dutch settlers so amicably and gave them lands.

James Fenimore Cooper located around Glen's Falls the scene of his novel, the _Last of the Mohicans_, in which _Hawkeye_, looking out of the cavern in the ravine, gives his admirable description of the cataract as it appeared in the French and Indian War, before the millwright had come along to disturb the scenery. "Ay," he said, "there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and below. If you had daylight it would be worth the trouble to step up on the height of this rock and look at the perversity of the water. It falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles; there it skips; here it shoots; in one place 'tis as white as snow, and in another 'tis as green as gra.s.s; hereabouts it pitches into deep hollows that rumble and quake the 'arth, and thereaway it ripples and sings like a brook, fas.h.i.+oning whirlpools and gullies in the old stone as if 'twere no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river seems disconnected. First it runs smoothly as if meaning to go down the descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the sh.o.r.es; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if unwilling to leave the wilderness to mingle with the salt!"

SOURCES OF THE HUDSON.

The n.o.ble Hudson River, which we have ascended to Glen's Falls, flows out of the great Adirondack wilderness of Northern New York, the headwaters draining its extensive southern declivity. Among these virgin Adirondack woods and mountains, near the Long Lake, is the remote source of the western branch of the Hudson, the "Hendrick Spring." Surrounded by forest and swamp, this cool and shallow pool, about five feet in diameter, fringed by delicate ferns, and overhung with vines and shrubbery, is the beginning of the great river, and named in honor of its discoverer and first explorer:

"Far up in the dim mountain glade, Wrapped in the myst'ry of its shade, On a cold rock, a dewdrop fell, And slumbered in its stony sh.e.l.l, Till brewed within its rocky bed, There trickled out a silver thread, A little, shy, lost waterling, That marks the cradled mountain spring."

The Hendrick Spring is within a half-mile of Long Lake and upon the same summit, the latter discharging its waters northward into the St.

Lawrence. The little stream from this source gathers force, and flows through a chain of brooks and ponds to the lovely Catlin Lake. High peaks environ them, and their swelling waters make much of the river on coming to the confluence with the northern branch of the Hudson at the outlet of Harris Lake. Here there blooms, all about, the splendid cardinal plant, its showy flower glowing like a flame.

The most elevated fountain head of the Hudson is upon the northern branch. Within the inmost recesses of the mountain wilderness, in a ravine between two of the highest peaks, the river has its spring nearest the sky, known as "The Tear of the Clouds," a lofty pool, adjacent to one of the noted Adirondack portages, the Indian Pa.s.s, at about forty-three hundred feet elevation above the sea. From this pool the water flows out through the Feldspar Brook into the Opalescent River, which does not go far before it tumbles down the picturesque cascade of the Hanging Spear, leaping fifty feet into a narrow abyss between perpendicular walls, and emerging among a ma.s.s of huge boulders. All these rocks, like the greater part of the Aga.n.u.s-chion, or Black Mountains, as the Indians often called the Adirondacks, are composed largely of the labradorite or opalescent feldspar, which fills the stream-bed with beautiful pebbles of blue or green or gold, many of them having all the colors. Thus glittering with the splendors of its rich coloring under the sunlight, the Opalescent River falls into Sandford Lake. A visitor to the Indian Pa.s.s says the explorers entered the rocky gorge between the steep slopes of Mount McIntyre and the cliffs of Wallface Mountain to the westward. Clambering high above the bottom of the canyon, they could see the famous Indian Pa.s.s between these mountains in all its wild grandeur. Before them rose a perpendicular cliff nearly twelve hundred feet from base to summit, its face being apparently as raw as if only just cleft. Above sloped Mount McIntyre, still more lofty than the cliff of Wallface, and in the gorge between lay piles of rocks, grand in dimensions and awful in aspect, as if hurled there by some terrible convulsion. Through these came the little stream going to the Hudson, bubbling along from its source close by a fountain of the Ausable. In spring freshets their waters commingle, part finding their way to the ocean at New York and part at Newfoundland.

Still another spring of clear cold water is a source of the Hudson, sending down the mountain side a vigorous rivulet, falling into the Opalescent. This fountain bubbles from a ma.s.s of loose rocks, some weighing a thousand tons apiece, about a hundred feet from the summit of the n.o.ble Mount Marcy, which the Indians called Tahawus, the "Sky-piercer." From these sources among the Adirondacks flows the most important river of New York, uniting the waters of myriads of lakes and springs to form the n.o.ble stream which is picturesque and attractive throughout the whole of its course of three hundred miles to the sea. The main branches of the upper Hudson unite almost under the shadow of Tahawus, and flowing a tortuous course, it receives the outlet of Schroon Lake, the largest in the Adirondacks, covering about twenty square miles, the junction-point being but a short distance west of Lake George. Then flowing southward and turning eastward, it emerges from the mountain wilderness, and in about a hundred miles reaches its great cataract at Glen's Falls. Sweeping around the grand bend below, and tumbling down Baker's Falls, past Fort Edward and the rapids of Fort Miller, it receives the largest tributary from the eastward, the Battenkill, a rapid shallow stream flowing from the Green Mountains of Vermont. Thence its course is southward, every mile from the wilderness to the sea being replete with historic and scenic attractions:

"Queen of all lovely rivers, l.u.s.trous queen Of flowing waters in our sweet new lands, Rippling through sunlight to the ocean sands, Within a smiling valley, and between Romantic sh.o.r.es of silvery summer green; Memorial of wild days and savage bands, Singing the patient deeds of patriot hands, Crooning of golden glorious years foreseen."