[Sidenote: ANTI-RENT TROUBLES.]

The anti-rent troubles which occupied the attention of the state for one hundred and one years began on the Livingston Estate in the Fall of 1751. The tenants first neglected, then refused to pay rent. The boundary line between New York and Massachusetts was in dispute, both Provinces claiming this territory; and the malcontents, taking advantage of this to get some sort of title to their farms from the "Committee of the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," defied Robert Livingston Jr., the then proprietor, and a hard time he had of it to deal with both the discontented farmers and the government of the adjoining Province, New York being slow to take up the cudgels in his behalf.

From here the trouble spread to the Van Rensselaer and other manors, resulting in riots and small-sized warfare, with now and then the murder of a sheriff on the one side or an anti-renter on the other. The matter got into state politics and finally, in 1846, the tenants elected their Governor, and in 1852 the Court of Appeals decided in favor of the tenants, and the trouble was laid to rest.

Among the notables of Columbia County was Samuel J. Tilden, who was born and raised here, but who early gravitated to New York City. The local historian also sets great store by the Hon. Elisha Williams who, during the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, was the bright particular star of the Columbia County Bar.

[Sidenote: FIRST "STAGE-WAGGONS".]

In 1786 the first systematic attempt to run stages over the Post Road appears to have been made by three Columbia County men, Isaac Van Wyck, Talmage Hall and John Kinney, as in that year the state granted to these men the exclusive right "to erect, set up, carry on and drive stage-waggons" between New York and Albany on the east side of Hudson's River, etc., fare limited to 4 pence per mile, trips once a week. Right here it is interesting to note that in 1866 Lossing wrote of the Hudson River Railway that "more than a dozen trains each way pass over portions of the road in the course of twenty-four hours."

[Sidenote: NEVIS—CLAREMONT—BLUE STORE.]

Nevis is little more than a cross-roads. Claremont a straggling village of no moment; further on the road crosses the Roeloff Jansen Kill over a bridge that looks as though it must have heard the rumble of many a stage coach.

Some newspaper antiquarian says:—

"Kill seems to be a Low Dutch word of American coinage. I have never found the word kill for brook in Low Dutch or Low German writings. I think they originally pronounced it 'kuell' (cool), and to a people transplanted from a low country to a mountainous one, where the water of the brooks was cool even in midsummer, the suggestion may be plausible. The Low Dutch have 'vliet' (fleet) for stream. The German for streaming is 'stroemen.' Hamburg has its numerous fleets or canals. The Low German of the Luenenburger Helde calls a brook a streak or a 'beek.' Note the word 'Beekman.'"

A hundred years or more ago, when they were naming things in these parts, Blue Store was blue store, and they keep up the tradition faithfully to-day. Everything except what nature tints is the favorite color. This was one of the principal stopping places on the Post Road, but it has sadly dwindled since the old days.

[Sidenote: JOHNSTOWN—RACE PLACE.]

Johnstown contains three Livingston houses, built by various members of this omnipresent family. The one north of the village stands on a commanding hill, and looks from the road like a handsome place. In 1805 there were twenty public houses in this place, even members of the reigning family consenting to take in the sheckels over the bar.

It has been interesting to see the chickens scurry for cover whenever a noisy flock of blackbirds passes overhead on its way to the southland. They seemed to think, if chickens think, that all the hawks in christendom were swooping down on their devoted heads, and stood not on the order of their going.

[Sidenote: COLD NIGHT.]

Race Place is a half mile off the road, but being garnished with a hotel I went there for the night. The village centre consists of two dwellings, two blacksmith shops and the hotel, which carries the legend "Race Place Hotel, 1700," and its interior bears out the aged suggestion. The parlor floor has sagged a foot or so, due to the crowds that have assembled here during past country balls. The ballroom is on the second floor, where one would naturally expect to find bedrooms, and the proprietor proudly announced that as many as sixty couples had danced here at once; there must have been some hearty bumps during the process. There are three bedrooms tucked away in recesses at the rear. It was my lot to sleep in a feather bed under a mountain of patchwork quilts with never a care for Jack Frost sitting on the window ledge outside. But, oh! what a difference in the morning, when I must climb out of that nice, warm nest to shut the window, catching a scrap of conversation in doing so, the burden of which was, "ice an inch thick." Think of shaving and washing in water that has spent the night in such company!

The proprietor of the hotel thinks walking through the country is all right and perfectly safe provided the traveler keeps away from those large hotels where they burn gas. Gas is dangerous. Two of his friends and neighbors went on a visit to Albany and, as he put it, came home in pine boxes. Keep away from gas-lit hotels and you are all right. The kitchen was the only place in the house where an overcoat was not de rigeur, and there the evening was passed with the family. There was much edifying conversation and considerable speculation over a stuffed olive which the daughter of the house had brought home from school; the housewife feared to taste it and the good man had no curiosity to gratify.

[Sidenote: STONE MILL—CLAVERACK.]

Stone Mill, on Claverack Creek, so named because of the old stone mill built in 1766, is a postoffice, but why, in these days of rural free delivery, is not quite clear, as the miller has but two or three neighbors who live in sight.

[Sidenote: CLAVERACK.]

Claverack, Clover-reach—the town is one of the oldest—was once the county seat, until Hudson captured the prize. With what scorn must the staid Dutchmen have looked on the hustling Yankees who almost built the greatest city of the region over night.

As early as 1629 the Hollanders looked on this land and found it good. It was part of the Van Rensselaer grants, this region in time coming to be known as the Lower Manor. The settlers here appear to have come with money and servants, and to have been better provided for than most of those who broke into the wilderness. Early descriptions suggest a land flowing with milk and honey. Deer were so plenty that one could be had from the Indians for a loaf of bread; turkeys, pheasants, quail, hares and squirrels were everywhere; forest trees were festooned with grape vines; blackberries, strawberries, wild plums and nut trees abounded, and the streams were full of most excellent fish.

The soil was fertile, and the community soon became a flourishing one, and the centre of interest and the county seat. The fine courthouse, erected in 1786 and still standing, was the scene of some notable legal contests, the most memorable being the trial of Harry Croswell, editor of the Hudson Balance, in 1804, charged with libel upon President Jefferson. The prosecution was handled by Ambrose Spencer, Attorney-General, and the newspaper man was defended by William H. Van Ness and Alexander Hamilton, whose eloquence failed to save the accused. In 1805 Hudson became the county seat, and the courthouse was abandoned to private use.

The village still contains a number of notably fine specimens of Colonial architecture, one of which is the Ludlow house, built in 1786. The present Ludlow, a grandson of Robert Fulton, having some money and much leisure, has turned the old place into a Fulton museum. The Miller house, formerly Muldor, an interesting relic of the year 1767, is known as the Court Martial House, it having been used for the trial and its cellar for the imprisonment of delinquents during the Revolution, the owner himself being among those who suffered, he being given the choice of paying $1,000 or serving two months. This appears to have been because the gentleman shirked his military duties. His thoughts on the subject of being haled a prisoner to his own cellar do not appear to have been recorded; possibly they would not look well in print, as it was written by an early traveler through this region that the inhabitants were much "addicted to misusing the blessed name of God." Mr. Miller, if inclined that way, certainly was afforded every opportunity. Other attractive places are the Webb house, erected about 1790; the Old Stone House, on the Post Road, formerly an inn, said to be haunted by the ghost of a murdered pedler, and the Dutch Church, 1767, in the northern edge of the village. In fact, buildings a hundred years old are too frequent to excite remark. Gen. James Watson Webb, whose father, Gen. Samuel B. Webb, was wounded on Bunker Hill, was born here, as was Judge William P. Van Ness, Aaron Burr's second in the Hamilton duel, and many another man known to fame.

[Sidenote: HUDSON.]

It is but a short distance to Hudson, whose history is so interestingly different from that of the other towns of the region that a few words concerning it may not be out of place, even if the Post Road does pass by on the other side. Here, in 1783, came certain Quakers from Providence and Newport, Nantucket and Edgartown. It seems that the British cruisers had crippled the whaling industry and other marine ventures in which these enterprising gentlemen were engaged, and they sought a more secluded haven from which to transact their business. Some of them brought, on the brig "Comet," houses framed and ready for immediate erection, but before placing them these methodical Quakers first laid out the town in regular form, establishing highways, and not allowing them to develop from cow paths, as was the honest Dutch fashion. A committee was appointed "to survey and plot the city," and another to see that the streets were given suitable names.

The settlers promptly opened clay pits, burned bricks, built a first-class wharf, and were regularly trading with New York within a year after they landed. A canoe ferry satisfied the earlier settlers, but "a gunwaled scow" was none too good for the new comers.

In 1785 it was the second port in the state; two ship yards were established, and a large ship, the Hudson, was nearly ready for launching. The fame of its hustle was attracting people from every side. March 31, 1785, the first newspaper was issued; April 22, 1785, a legislative act incorporated the place into a city; and by January, 1786, they had finished an aqueduct to bring in an abundant supply of pure water from two miles back in the country.

In 1790 it was made a port of entry. In 1793 the Bank of Columbia was chartered; in 1796-7 the city issued small bills and copper coins.

Hudson was incorporated the third city in the State, was the third port of entry, and had one of the three banks in the State. Once it started on the down grade, however, its "decline and fall off" was equally rapid.

[Sidenote: POST ROAD.]

Now to get back to the Post Road, where the pace is not quite so hot-foot. As the next town is Kinderhook, some fourteen miles away, there is plenty of time to view the beauties of nature and fill one's nostrils with its rich perfumes. Most of the year's work in the fields is finished; here and there the shocks are being overhauled for the corn, which is shucked as gathered, while the pumpkins are still accumulating sunshine for the golden Thanksgiving pie. From the barn yards come the pounding of the steam thresher or the creak of a windlass, suggesting that the hay crop is being baled. Everything is busy but the cows, who evidently do not like frosting on their cake and, having the day before them, can afford to wait till the good sun comes along to undo the work which has kept Jack Frost so busy all night.

The Catskills or Blue Mountains, as they are known from this distance, fill the western horizon, while the beautiful landscapes sloping down toward the river are so exquisite that the traveler involuntarily pauses to take it all in. For a goodly portion of the time the road keeps well up along a side hill, giving an extensive view over the valley beneath and to the mountains beyond—the autumn colors and softness are like the fairy dreams of childhood. With the blood dancing under the influence of the brisk morning air, walking is a luxury, and the glow that comes with the exercise, as well as every sight and sound, a new found joy.

The people hereabouts, while used to all sorts of freaks, can hardly understand how one can idly walk through the country with no higher ambition than the taking of a picture here and there, and many are the questions to be answered as to the whyness of the whichness, the old farmer generally going on with a dubious shake of the head, convinced that there is a screw loose somewhere.

[Sidenote: FARMER FOLK.]

A farmer, on whose load of potatoes I rode into Kinderhook, thinks farming doesn't pay—would have been better off if he had worked at days' work all this time. He was cheerful, however, and wholly free from care; his horses were not matched, one doing all the pulling, the other all the sojering, and they went their own gait without interference from him. "Apples! Why apples aren't worth picking this year." It happened that I fell in with the other kind near Stone Mill. He made $1,000 from apples alone last year; would not make so much this season, but they were well worth the gathering; there was money in the ground for him. The individual seems to count in farming, same as in everything else.

Just out of Claremont a young fellow was thrown from his runabout, his horse being frightened at an automobile, and it was only the quickness of the chauffeur that saved him from being run over. Did he curse the rich man's machine? Not he! His only idea was to find another and show his "new animal" who was master! Aside from this irritating feature, the whole affair was a huge joke on him. He was as handsome and wholesome looking as good health and an outdoor life could make a man.

[Sidenote: LINDENWALD—JESSE MERWIN.]

Some two miles out of Kinderhook stands Lindenwald, to which Ex-President Van Buren retired. The house was built by Judge William P. Van Ness, previously mentioned. Washington Irving was a welcome and frequent guest in the Van Ness household, and it was in this neighborhood that he became acquainted with Jesse Merwin, school teacher, prototype of Ichabod Crane in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The two men were the best of friends, and the caricature does not seem to have cooled their pleasant relations. The schoolhouse stands on the roadside, somewhat nearer the village; at least the building pointed out as such is there, but in a letter to Merwin, Irving regrets that the old schoolhouse is torn down "where, after my morning's literary task was over, I used to come and wait for you, occasionally, until school was dismissed. You would promise to keep back the punishment of some little tough, broad-bottomed Dutch boy, until I could come, for my amusement—but never kept your promise."

The following notice of the death of "Ichabod Crane" appeared in the Westchester Herald for November 30, 1852:

"Jesse Merwin died at Kinderhook on the 8th instant, at the age of seventy years. Mr. Merwin was well known in this community as an upright, honorable man, in whom there was no guile. He was for many years a Justice of the Peace, the duties of which office he discharged with scrupulous fidelity and conscientious regard to the just claims of suitors, ever frowning upon those whose vocation it is to "foment discord and perplex right." At an early period of his life, and while engaged in school teaching, he passed much of his time in the society of Washington Irving, then a preceptor in the family of the late Judge Van Ness, of this town.

"Both were engaged in congenial pursuits and, their residences being only a short distance apart, the author of the 'Sketch Book' frequently visited the 'Old Schoolhouse,' in which 'Squire Merwin' was employed in teaching the young idea how to shoot, and subsequently immortalized his name by making him the hero of one of his inimitable tales, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'"

[Sidenote: KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE.]

A step further on, and across the highway, stands the Katrina Van Tassel house, on whose blooming young mistress the Yankee pedagogue was wont to cast longing eyes; this is the old Van Allen house, built in 1717, says one, in 1735 according to another—a plain building whose Holland bricks are still good, though somewhat the worse for wear.

Soon the road crosses the Kinderhook Creek into the village by an ancient covered bridge which has echoed to the thunder of many an old "stage-wagon." The crossing is rather a long one, resulting in two bridges with an interval of open between them. Down below the stream rolls lazily along while the cattle, standing at ease, seem to catch its indolent spirit. These streams, affording opportunity for water power, appear to have drawn the settlers away from the banks of the great river, and thus the towns grew up well inland from its shores. Between Staatsburg and Greenbush, a matter of fifty-six miles, we find only five towns on the river's edge, while back, along the Post Road, or in its immediate vicinity, are some twenty villages both great and small.

[Sidenote: KINDERHOOK.]

Kinderhook—Children's Corner—as musical and attractive a name as one could ask. It is said that a Dutchman once lived hereabouts whose progeny was so numerous as to attract attention, even in the days of large families, and so the place came by its name as a matter of course.

Being a stranger in a strange land, I early sought out the good Dr. C., who did not at first seem as genial as anticipation had pictured, but finding, as the purpose of the call was explained, how truly harmless was the intent, he suggested a tour of the village in his company, confiding as we reached the outer air that he was so glad it was not a book agent who had called; that he was delighted to do all he could, and so it proved, for he could do and did all and more than most would feel called upon to do for the casual stranger.

[Sidenote: MARTIN VAN BUREN.]

Abraham Van Buren, father of Martin, was one of the early tavern keepers of Kinderhook, and here the son was born and educated to the law. His dwelling place is pointed out, and it is truly the site but not the substance, as the old building has fallen victim to the march of improvement.

Elson says of Martin Van Buren:—

"He was a man of greater individuality and ability than is generally put to his credit by historians.... In the Cabinet of Jackson he was by no means a figurehead even there, for it was largely due to his skill that Jackson made the two brilliant strokes in his foreign policy.... Van Buren has been pronounced the cleverest political manager in American history, and no other man has held so many high political offices. He was small of stature, had a round, red face and quick, searching eyes. He was subtle, courteous and smooth in conversation."

[Sidenote: PARSONAGE-FORT.]

As early as 1670 Hollanders settled here. The first interesting house one meets on entering the village from the south is the old Dutch parsonage which, being of brick, was a tower of strength against the Indians as well as the Devil. The Indians raided this region in 1755 and visited the neighborhood of Kinderhook at a time when the men were away, but their stout-hearted wives and daughters were equal to the occasion; for, donning such male attire as they could find and shouldering the family arms, they made such a brave show in and about the fort that the Indians retired without attempting its capture. A short distance east of this stands another old parsonage-fort, but little or nothing seems to be known concerning its history, though legend mentions its cellar door as bearing the marks of Indian tomahawks. It is said to be a fact that the heavy timbers in some of these old houses were imported from Holland to these heavily wooded banks of the Hudson.

[Sidenote: CENTENNIAL MANSION.]

On the pleasantest street of the village stands the Centennial Mansion, opposite the Dutch Church, erected in 1774 by Daniel Van Schaack. The house has been the social centre of the town for more than a hundred years. One of its earliest associations concerns the visit of General Richard Montgomery, when on his way to take command of the army against Canada. Henry Van Schaack, a brother of Daniel, was an intimate friend of the General, they having been thrown together while in the Seventeenth Regiment in the war of 1755.

In October, 1777, General Burgoyne, a prisoner of war, was quartered here for a short time, and during the following years a long list of prominent men passed through its hospitable portals: John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, Chancellor Kent and others.

After the Van Schaack regime had passed came the Hon. Cornelius P. Van Ness, who in due time became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, then its Governor, and later was minister to Spain. Washington Irving arouses the ire of the local historian by stating that the Van Ness ancestors came by their name because they were "valiant robbers of birds' nests." The next owner was a merry gentleman whose ghost is said to still haunt the sideboard.

Then came Dr. John P. Beekman, whose first wife was a Van Schaack. He added the two wings which adorn either end of the building; and again its doors are opened wide, sharing, with Lindenwald, the honor of entertaining the nation's notables, many of them introduced by Van Buren. Such names as Henry Clay, Washington Irving, Thomas H. Benton, David Wilmot and Charles Sumner head the list. David Wilmot was a notably corpulent gentleman; his introduction by Van Buren to the lady of the house is said to have been put thus wise: "Mrs. Beekman, you have heard of the Wilmot Proviso—Here he is in the body."

The house is now occupied by the widow of Aaron J. Vanderpoel, a Van Schaack grand-daughter.

From the "Reminiscences" of a Kinderhooker we learn that there were two or three stage lines whose coaches passed through the village daily, and that the merits of their various steeds were the cause of much local controversy around the tavern stove. The drivers "were mainly farmers' sons, many of them well to do, selected with special reference to sobriety as well as in handling the ribbons;" and the heart of every lad in the village was fired with the hope that some day he might be selected to fill that high office.

Starting again on the Post Road toward the north, we come to the one-time Kinderhook Academy, celebrated in its day, but its day has passed, and on the outskirts of the town pass the old cemetery where Martin Van Buren and Jesse Merwin lie with the forefathers of the neighborhood.

[Sidenote: WE LEAVE THE POST ROAD.]

Here we part from the old Post Road, which continues on through Valatie, Niverville and South Schodack to Schodack Centre, where it joins company with the Boston Road, and together they travel through East Greenbush to Greenbush where once was the ferry at Crawlier.

The way I took through Muitzeskill and Castleton to Greenbush, is marked with New York and Albany guide posts, but none of the old mile-stones adorn its path.

Ever since Rhinebeck the Catskills have been marching along the western horizon, and while generally the river is too far away to be a part of the picture, the country, the beautiful country, makes one continually wonder, not that the painters of a past generation grew to love the region and to revel in its seductive delights, but rather that they could ever stop its delineation. The effect of the changing light and shade and varying atmospheric conditions lend the same enchantment that lies in the ever-changing sea.

[Sidenote: THE DISTANT HILLS.]

About where that mystery, the county line, crosses the road, one stands on a gentle ridge that extends the view both east and west. Toward the latter, on this Indian Summer day were the ghosts of mountains that in brighter times are the Catskills, while to the east are the low-lying hills of the Taghkanic range, whose far slopes roll down to meet the advances of the Berkshires. Beautiful undulating farm lands lead the eye up to the distant hills on either hand, fields of every warm tint with sentinel oaks or walnuts, and here and there the wood-lot of the farmer. The soft browns and greens of the distant corn stubble, or the winter barley fields with the blaze of the Frost King's robes mellowed by the golden sun complete a picture common enough in this wonderful valley of the Hudson, but always a well-spring of delight for the traveler.

[Sidenote: MUITZESKILL.]

After crossing into Rensselaer County the first village one comes in contact with is Muitzeskill, whose burial ground is old enough to be interesting to the searcher for curious epitaphs. All country places have their odd characters, and this region is no exception. Among the elegant extracts quoted as dropping from the lips of its citizens is the remark of a certain Michael Younghans, hotel keeper, who declaiming about certain improvements he was thinking of, said that he was "A-going to get carpenters to impair his house, firiquelly it in front, open pizarro all round, up-an-dicular posts on a new destruction." What was to happen after that no man knoweth.

[Sidenote: FIREPLACE OF THE NATION.]

This rolling country was once the council seat of the Mohicans, this fact being commemorated in the name of Schodack, a Dutch rendering of the Indian word Esquatak, "the fireplace of the nation." The Mohicans had been pretty thoroughly "pacified" by the Mohawks about the time that Hudson ascended the river, and this region is full of legends of fights and ambuscades.

It seems that Burgoyne's captured army was marched south over this road, and some three miles out of Castleton, so the story goes, one Jacob Jahn, a Hessian prisoner, escaped to the woods and later, building a log house on the exact spot where he effected his escape, he settled down, after taking unto himself a wife, and became a good citizen.

The road follows the level table land almost to the Hudson, when it dips down a steep incline, crosses the Muitzes Kill and joins the river road. Once upon a time, as history records, as an excitable Dutch vrouw was wending her way along the banks of this brook, a sudden gust of wind caught up her cap, the pride of her heart, and whisked it into the water beyond reach, whereupon she set up an outcry, "Die muts is in die kill! Die muts is in die kill!" and so it is even unto this day. What kind of a name the stream might now be murmuring under, had this adventure befallen her good man is fearful to think on.

[Sidenote: CASTLETON.]

It is Castleton because the Indians once had a castle on the crest of the hill back of the village. The town is comparatively new, having been incorporated as late as 1827, and appears to have taken no important or interesting part in the days when history was making; but there was a ship yard here, and home-built sloops competed for the New York trade before the railroad changed things.

It is told of a certain foolish citizen, a passenger on one of the village sloops anchored for the night somewhere in the Highlands, that, being requested by the wag of the party to steer the stationary boat while the others took needed rest, he faithfully performed his task until relieved the next morning. When asked by his shipmates how they had got on during the night he replied that they had got along a good ways by the water, but not far by the land.

Castleton is one long street which wanders out into the open country at either end, and lonely country it is if one proceeds north as the early twilight of a cool November evening is closing around. The wayfarer, if he be of a fearful temperament and has read the story of the Murder Place, is apt to quicken his steps as he passes into the shadows of the trees that gloom the crossing of the stream marking the northern boundary of the village, and known as the Hell Hole. On the right are abrupt little hills, wooded and awesome, while off toward the west stretch the flats left by the river, with now and then a silent pool to reflect the dying embers of the burned-out day. No light gleams from a friendly window, only the shadowy form of a hay rake left out by some farmer suggests human companionship. With eight miles of such traveling ahead, it is small wonder if the wayfarer hastens.

[Sidenote: "CITIZEN" GENET.]

About half-way, where one passes a schoolhouse overlooking the flats and the guide board says 3-1/2 miles to Castleton, once lived "Citizen" Genet, and his house still stands a quarter of a mile back on Prospect Hill, facing the cross road to East Greenbush. Edmond Charles Genet was sent out to this country in the Spring of 1793 by the new French Republic. Things moved rapidly in France in those days, and Genet's friends were soon removed and he, fearing the guillotine, became an American citizen, "a scientific farmer and an ornament to New York society." In 1810 he moved to Greenbush, where he died in 1834. His tombstone in the burial ground of the Dutch Church in East Greenbush tells us that "His heart was love and friendship's sun." His house was once the home of Gen. Hendrick K. Van Rensselaer, whose bravery at Fort Ann saved the American army in 1777.

Part of the flat lands we have been skirting go to make up the long island of Paps Knee, which was early selected as a place of refuge. Here a fort was built and farms were laid out, but in 1666 a flood swept away houses and cattle, and since then the farmers have lived on the higher main land; only one brick house, the fort, escaped and that still stands, bearing its two hundred and seventy-five years with the grace of long practice.

Where the road works down to meet the river comes Douw's Point, once the head of steamboat navigation; passengers for Albany and beyond going forward in stages after crossing the river in a horse ferryboat. It is whispered that a few rods below the point Captain Kidd buried treasures. Old Volkert P. Douw was so staunch a patriot that he refused to hold office under the English, and gave his money and his time to the American cause.

[Sidenote: FORT CRALO.]

[Sidenote: YANKEE DOODLE.]

In the lower edge of the village of Greenbush and on the River Road which we are following stands the most interesting building of the region, old Fort Cralo, built in 1642 for protection against the Indians. Its white oak beams are said to be eighteen inches square and its walls two to three feet thick. Some of its portholes still remain as reminders of the times of the war whoop and scalp dance. It is said there were once secret passages to the river, which is just across the road. During the last of the French and Indian wars Major-General James Abercrombie had his headquarters here—1758; and it was here that Yankee Doodle came into being. Among the Colonial regiments which joined the regulars at this point were some from Connecticut whose appearance became a by-word among the well-kept British troops. The song was composed by a surgeon attached to the army, as a satire on these ragged provincials; less than twenty years later the captured soldiers of Burgoyne marched between the lines of the victorious Yankees to the same tune.

It is but a step to the trolley, and in a brief five minutes we are across "The Great River of the Mountains" as Hudson called it, and at our journey's end.

[Sidenote: SCHUYLER—VAN RENSSELAER.]

The man who can rise superior to feelings of personal grievance, or even just anger, is the man we all admire. Such, history says, was Gen. Philip Schuyler who, when Burgoyne had wantonly burned his country seat near Saratoga, entertained that same Burgoyne after his capture in his town house, which still stands at the head of Schuyler Street, Albany, in so hospitable a fashion that the British General, struck with the American's generosity, said to him: "You show me great kindness though I have done you much injury," whereupon Schuyler returned: "That was the fate of war; let us say no more about it." This house was erected about 1765, and General Schuyler lived here with his family for nearly forty years, dispensing such notable hospitality as to call down the blessings of many a traveler to and from Canada or the West.

The Van Rensselaer Manor House stood on the river bank, but nothing is now left of it but the little old brick office, which stands disconsolate along the street, watching through half-closed blinds the great woodworking plant which occupies the site of the old home of the Patroon.

One other reminder of the days gone by still survives in the Peter Schuyler house in the northern limits of Albany, at the Flats. Lossing says of this: "It is famous in Colonial history as the residence of Col. Peter Schuyler, of the Flats, the first mayor of Albany, and who, as Indian Commissioner in after years took four kings or sachems of the Mohawks to England and presented them at the court of Queen Anne."

[Sidenote: IT IS FINISHED.]

And now we have finished, and there is naught to do but return home, and various are the ways of doing it. If time is of no moment there is the west bank of the Hudson to explore all the way down to Paulus Hook, from whence the ferry will easily land one once more on the Island of Manhattan. If time counts, the night boat is a simple solution of the problem.