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WINTER SKETCHES 
 
 FROM THE SADDLE 
 
 BY A SEPTUAGENARIAN 
 
 
 JOHN CODMAN 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 ®fje Ihtickcrborhfr 1$U»» 
 
I 
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Press of 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York 
 
TO 
 GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 
 THE OCTOGENARIAN EQUESTRIAN, 
 
 THE HISTORIAN FOR ALL TIME, 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS BY PERMISSION 
 
 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Eqtiestrianopathy. — The Horse, the Saddle, and 
 the Outfit. — Westchester County. — Ele- 
 phants and Milk. — Decker s Institution. — 
 A Tozvn of Churches. — Meeting of Old 
 ScJwolmates. 
 
 I have a favorite medical system, which 
 I shall style Equestrianopathy. It is vastly 
 superior to Allopathy, Homoeopathy, Elec- 
 tropathy or pathy of any other kind. 
 
 " When pain and anguish wring the brow," 
 whether it comes from mental or physical de- 
 pression, too much exercise of brain or stom- 
 ach, dissipation of society or confinement in 
 furnace-heated hotels or offices of the city, I 
 resort to my remedy. 
 
 From my boyhood I have adopted it when- 
 ever opportunity offered, as a prophylactic as 
 well as a cure. Many hundred miles have I 
 
2 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 ridden over African deserts, South American 
 pampas and the plains and mountains of Cali- 
 fornia, Utah and Idaho ; and the miles trav- 
 ersed in New York and New England might 
 be counted by thousands. But for the horse I 
 should long ago have been in the grave. 
 
 " My kingdom for a horse ! " exclaimed 
 Richard. The horse has been a kingdom for 
 me. 
 
 I could say with Campbell 
 
 " Cease every joy to glimmer on my mind, 
 But leave, oh leave the light of hope behind, " 
 
 that light of hope being my saddle horse. 
 
 The late Rev. Dr. Cutler of Brooklyn, when 
 a feeble young man recovered his health by 
 riding from Portland to Savannah. His valu- 
 able life was prolonged to old age by this 
 almost daily exercise. When one of his 
 parishioners asked him how he could afford to 
 keep a horse, his reply was " My dear sir. I 
 cannot afford not to keep one." 
 
 If your business confines you to the city, 
 give the night two hours that you now steal 
 from it, and take for the day two hours 
 that you give for sleep. Take this clear gain 
 of time for horseback exercise in the park. 
 
HORSE AND SADDLE. 3 
 
 But if you are a man of leisure, ride through 
 the country for days and weeks on long jour- 
 neys, where constantly recurring changes di- 
 vert the mind that stagnates in daily routine. 
 
 Procure — I mean buy, own, an animal that is 
 exclusively a saddle horse. A horse is like a 
 servant in one especial respect, " A servant of 
 all work " is perfect in nothing. She is a poor 
 cook, a poor parlor-girl and a poor chamber- 
 maid. A horse that goes double and single in 
 harness and is likewise used under the saddle, 
 walks, trots and lopes indifferently. A good 
 driving and riding horse is a rare combination, 
 and a horse generally used in harness is never 
 capable of any prolonged journey under the 
 saddle. 
 
 Select a horse whose weight corresponds in 
 proportion to your own. He should be a fast 
 walker, a good trotter and an easy loper. A 
 fast walk is the quality most desirable though 
 not often sufficiently considered. Walk your 
 horse half the time and divide the other half 
 between the trot and the lope. Now as to the 
 saddle. The little " pig skin" is adapted to 
 hunting and is well enough for play and exer- 
 cise in the park. It is used by exquisites who 
 ape all things English. Did you ever notice 
 
4 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 that such persons invariably carry a Malacca 
 joint with a rectangular ivory or steel handle, a 
 loop at the other end of the stick ? Ask them 
 the use of it and they will tell you that it is 
 the fashion. 
 
 Really it is useful to country gentlemen 
 of England, who, riding where lanes and gates 
 abound, are enabled without dismounting, to 
 catch the gate latch, and to close the gate 
 after them with the handle. They also put a 
 lash into the loop when hunting, but the thing 
 is a useless encumbrance here. 
 
 The English saddle is not well adapted to 
 long journeys. It often galls the horse's back, 
 which the unstuffed Mexican or McClellan 
 never does, if properly put on far enough 
 aft and with a blanket underneath. 
 
 Especially is this true in regard to a lady's 
 saddle. If a horse could speak he would tell 
 you which he likes best. I wish that Balaam's 
 ass when he was in a conversational mood, had 
 said something definite on the subject of sad- 
 dles. Be kind, while you are firm with your 
 horse. Don't carry a whip — he will see it and 
 suspect you. Wear light spurs, which are good 
 persuasives and which he will think have 
 
DYSPEPSIA. 5 
 
 touched him accidentally, while at the same 
 time they serve to keep him awake. 
 
 Loosen the girths frequently when you 
 alight, and when you stop for anytime remove 
 the saddle and wash his back. The beast will 
 thank you with his grateful eyes. 
 
 Do not give him water when hot, excepting 
 enough to wet his mouth. Feed him when 
 cool, but feed neither him nor yourself im- 
 mediately before starting, nor when greatly fa- 
 tigued. The neglect of this precaution may 
 induce dyspepsia for a horse as well as for a 
 man. I am writing for people upon whom this 
 treatment is urged that they may avoid or be 
 cured of that distressing malady. It is old as 
 the world. It came from the indigestible ap- 
 ples of the Garden of Eden. 
 
 Virgil thus describes it : 
 
 " — rostroque immanis vultur obunco 
 Immortale jecur tondens fecundaque poenis 
 Viscera rimaturque epulis, habitatque sub aito 
 Pectore, nee fibris requies datur ulla renatis." 
 
 That is a vivid description of dyspepsia. It 
 is what the priestess thought as worth her 
 while to take Aeneas down to hell to behold, 
 that among other terrible sights he might see 
 poor Tityus in one of its fits. 
 
6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Don't trust the most honest face in the 
 world in the matter of oats. See them put 
 into the manger, and hang about the stable 
 until your horse is fed. Get your own dinner 
 afterwards, for you are of less importance. If 
 your table is not properly served you can com- 
 plain. Your horse cannot. Do not overload 
 him with much baggage. Dead weight tells 
 upon him more that live weight. Dismount 
 occasionally when about to descend a long or 
 steep hill. You will thus relieve the horse and 
 vary the exercise of your own muscles. Wear 
 a woollen shirt and let him carry your night- 
 shirt, hair-brush, tooth-brush, bathing sponge, 
 a few collars and handkerchiefs ; they will weigh 
 but little over two pounds and will be all suf- 
 ficient. 
 
 Feed your horse with four quarts of oats in 
 the morning, two at noon and six at night, 
 and with all the hay that he cares to eat. 
 
 Now let us start on a short ride of twenty- 
 eight miles and return. 
 
 It is the middle of November, \x\, a season 
 when the autumn has prematurely succumbed 
 to the frosts of winter, and the scene of our 
 departure is at Lake Mohegan, one of those 
 beautiful and romantic basins among the hills 
 
WESTCHESTER COUNTY. J 
 
 of Westchester County which divides its attrac- 
 tions with its neighbors, Mahopac, Oscawana, 
 Mohansic and Osceola, all of them within fifty 
 miles of New York, and all, with the exception 
 of Mahopac, little known and almost undis- 
 turbed in the seclusion of nature. The people 
 of the crowded city who go out of it in the sum- 
 mer to the Kaaterskills, the White Mountains or 
 to the greater altitudes in more distant Colora- 
 do, surely have not informed themselves of the 
 scarcely less romantic scenery and healthful cli- 
 mate that is within their reach in an hour. Here 
 in the hills, which almost deserve the name of 
 mountains, are primeval forests and leafy sol- 
 itudes, rushing torrents and quiet glens that need 
 no distance to lend enchantment to the view. 
 Most of this soil is too rough for remunerative 
 agriculture, and it is difficult to understand how, 
 with all their industry and economy, the hardy 
 inhabitants manage to gain a livelihood. 
 
 The roads were hard and smooth and the clat- 
 ter of my horse's hoofs rang cheerily in the crisp 
 air when I left Mohegan. A lively gallop soon 
 brought us fourteen miles on our way easterly 
 over the hills to the little village of Somerstown. 
 Like a great castle on the Rhine, with its 
 two or three adjacent appurtenances, a large 
 
8 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 brick hotel looms up among the few small 
 houses in its neighborhood. My curiosity was 
 not only attracted by this disproportion, but by 
 the statue of an elephant nearly as large as life ; 
 I mean the life size of a small elephant, of 
 course. 
 
 This remarkable resemblance to the animal 
 was mounted on a high post before the door 
 of the hotel, and painted over the front of the 
 building I read, in enormous letters, " Elephant 
 Hotel." 
 
 It was time to breathe my horse, and the 
 ride had given me an appetite for any thing I 
 might find within, even if it should prove to 
 be an elephant steak. The landlord observed 
 that " the women-folks were not at home, but 
 he guessed he could find something." He ac- 
 cordingly placed a cold turkey and a bottle of 
 London porter on the table, and thus proved 
 that his guess was very correct. As he sat 
 down by my side, I asked him the meaning of 
 all this elephantine display. 
 
 " Why," he answered, " Hackaliaji Bayley 
 built this house himself ! " 
 
 " Hackaliah Bayley ! Who was he ? " 
 
 " Who was Hackaliah Bayley 1 Don't you 
 know ? He was the man who imported the 
 
HACKALIAH AND OLD BET. 9 
 
 first elephant into these U-nited States — old 
 Bet ; of course you have heard of old Bet ? " 
 
 " No, I have not." 
 
 " What, never heard of old Bet ! Well, sir, 
 you are pretty well along in life. Where have 
 you been all your days ? " 
 
 I told him I had not spent them all in West- 
 chester County. 
 
 " I should rather think not," replied the land- 
 lord, " or else you'd have heard of Hackaliah 
 Bayley and old Bet. Right here, from this 
 very spot, he started the first show in this 
 country. Right around here is where they 
 breed and winter wild animals to this day. 
 Folks round here have grown rich out of the 
 show business. There's men in this town that 
 have been to Asia and Africa to get animals ; 
 and Bayley's big circus (he was old Hackaliah's 
 son) grew up out from the small beginning 
 when Hackaliah imported old Bet, and that 
 wasn't more than sixty or seventy years ago. 
 Yes, sir ; Hackaliah began on that one she- 
 elephant. He and a boy were all the company. 
 They travelled nights and showed daytimes. 
 Old Bet — she knew just how much every bridge 
 in the country would bear before she put her 
 foot on it. Bimeby they got a cage of monkeys 
 
10 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 and carted them along, and gradually it got up 
 to bears, lions, tigers, camels, boa-constrictors, 
 alligators, Tom Thumb, hippopotamuses, and 
 the fat woman — in fact, to where it is now. 
 Yes, sir ; P. T. Barnum got the first rudiments 
 of his education from Hackaliah Bayley right 
 here in Somerstown. Elephants and milk have 
 made this town. In fact, we all live on ele- 
 phants and milk." 
 
 " Elephants and milk ! Good gracious, " I 
 exclaimed, " what a diet ! " 
 
 "Lord, sir," retorted my landlord, " did 
 you think I meant that we crumbled elephants 
 into milk and ate 'em ? No ; I mean to say 
 that the elephant business and the milk busi- 
 ness are what have built up this place. I've 
 told you what elephants have done for us, and 
 now I'll tell you about milk. There's farmers 
 round here owning a hundred cows apiece. 
 From the little depot of Purdy's you'll pass a 
 mile beyond this, we send eight thousand 
 gallons of milk every day to New York ; and it 
 starts from here pure, let me tell you, for we 
 are honest, if we were brought up in the show 
 business. Then right in our neighborhood are 
 two condensed-milk factories, where they use 
 seventeen thousand more. There's twenty- 
 
ELEPHANTS AND MILK. 1 1 
 
 five thousand gallons. The farmers get twelve 
 cents for it on the spot. So you see there is a 
 revenue of three thousand dollars a day to this 
 district. Now you've been telling me of the 
 West, how they raise forty bushels of wheat to 
 the acre, and all that. Well, what does it 
 amount to by the time they get their returns, 
 paying so much out in railroad freight ? You 
 ride along this afternoon, and if you come back 
 this way, tell me if the houses and fixings and 
 things, especially the boys, and more particu- 
 larly the gals, look any better in them fever- 
 and-ague diggings than they do here, if we do 
 live on elephants and milk! " 
 
 And so I parted from Mr. Mead, with many 
 thanks for the valuable information I should 
 never have been likely to acquire by travelling 
 on a railroad. 
 
 I soon came to Purdy's station, and dis- 
 mounting at the door of the factory was 
 politely shown the various processes by which 
 the raw material of cow product is manufact- 
 ured and reduced. One gallon of pure milk 
 is reduced to half a pint of the condensed, and 
 to this sugar is added for long preservation, 
 although it is not required if the milk is to be 
 used in two or three weeks. There is perhaps 
 
12 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 a greater assurance of purity in the new stock 
 than in the old stock, which is liable to be 
 watered ; still it might be readily imagined 
 that arrowroot and other ingredients may 
 form a basis for deception if the known integ- 
 rity of those who manufacture it, did not 
 place them above suspicion. 
 
 As I jogged along upon my road I overtook 
 a gentleman, of whom I enquired, " What is 
 that large establishment we are approaching ?" 
 
 " That, sir," he replied, " is Decker's, and I 
 think it is well worth seeing ; I have often had 
 a curiosity to enter it myself, and if you like 
 we can now apply for admission." We drew 
 up at the gates accordingly and permission to 
 enter was readily granted by the custodian. 
 
 " You will find the ladies at dinner just now, 
 gentlemen, " he said, il but they will be happy 
 to see you." 
 
 He accordingly ushered us in, and we passed 
 down between two rows of the occupants, who 
 were so busily engaged with their meal that 
 they scarcely noticed our presence. There 
 were eighty-seven of them, and what struck us 
 as very remarkable, they were dining in abso- 
 lute silence. They were variously dressed, 
 some in black, some in white, but red appeared 
 
DECKER'S. 
 
 13 
 
 to be the favorite color. It was gratifying to 
 notice that none of them wore bangs or idiot 
 fringes, although they all had switches and 
 high projecting horn combs. We asked the 
 superintendent if the ladies were at all re- 
 strained in their liberty. " Oh, no, " he replied, 
 " they have certain hours of the day at this 
 season for a promenade upon the lawn, 
 although we require them to be regular at 
 their meals three times daily and to be always 
 within doors at night. In summer we are not 
 so strict ; in fact they then live most of the 
 time in the open air." 
 
 "Are they charity patients? " we asked, 
 " or do they pay for their board and treat- 
 ment?" "It is true, " he answered, ''that 
 they do not come here of their own accord, 
 but I do not believe that they could have such 
 home comforts anywhere else. They like their 
 quarters and are willing to pay for them. 
 They do not pay in cash, but you observe that 
 each one has her reticule in which she brings 
 the proceeds of her day's work. We sendlt 
 down to New York and sell it there." " But I 
 do not see any gentlemen among them, " re- 
 marked my acquaintance. The superinten- 
 dent seemed somewhat confused as he replied 
 
14 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 that establishments of this kind were more 
 profitable when the boarders were ladies. 
 Soon afterwards we left the building express- 
 ing our thanks for the courtesy extended to 
 us and taking a note of the sign over the en- 
 trance, " Decker's Milk Dairy." 
 
 We passed on over the rich meadow lands of 
 a country so well adapted to milk farms by 
 its natural properties and its nearness by rail- 
 road to the city. There were many pretty 
 and even elegant and capacious residences, 
 evidently the homes of families who, combin- 
 ing the utile cum dulce, must have other means 
 of support besides the proceeds of these farms. 
 Like Mr. Decker, they make lavish expendi- 
 tures in economy, the result of which is, as many 
 of these gentlemen farmers are ready to admit, a 
 loss to them for what they charitably intend 
 for a benefit to their neighbors in the instruc- 
 tions given. Singularly^ however, the unedu- 
 cated farmer generally prefers his own old 
 way. Not caring for palatial barns, patent 
 fodder and ensilage, he shelters his cows 
 under rough sheds, feeds them on hay in 
 the winter and turns them out to pasture 
 in summer and makes a living from the pro- 
 
A TOWN OF CHURCHES. I 5 
 
 ceeds, while his experimenting instructor is 
 carrying his yearly account to the debit of 
 profit and loss. 
 
 Passing through the town of North Salem, 
 five miles beyond, the apparently religious 
 character of the people made a deep impres- 
 sion upon me. Inquiring of a farmer who was 
 driving along in a wagon by my side, he said 
 that in a population of twenty-five hundred, 
 there were eight different sects, each of course 
 considering itself in the only straight and 
 narrow path to heaven. "But," added my 
 informant, "such a quarrelsome set of cusses 
 you never did see. I guess the trouble is that 
 religion is cut up into such small junks that 
 nobody gets enough of it to do 'em any 
 good." 
 
 The border line is not well defined, but I 
 knew that I was now in Connecticut, and that 
 after riding half a dozen miles further, I should 
 come to the village of Ridgefield, the home of 
 my old friend and schoolmate, Dan Adams, 
 where a hearty welcome awaited me. 
 
 Dan is a retired physician — not that cele- 
 brated advertiser "whose sands of life have 
 nearly run out." I hope there is much sand 
 yet left in the time-glass of my friend. He is 
 
!6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 one of those wise men (of whom there are few) 
 who know that the grasshopper is likely soon 
 to become a burden, and so contrive to make 
 his weight light by husbanding their strength. 
 How few among men know when to leave off 
 business, and how few there are of these who 
 can leave it off and be happy ! He is one of 
 this small number to be envied. Twenty years 
 ago he relinquished his practice in the city, and 
 retired to this healthy spot. Here, with his 
 charming family around him, his comfortable 
 house, his elegant library, his pair of fine 
 horses, his robust health, he is as happy as 
 man can wish to be. 
 
 After our dinner we two old fellows sat up 
 far into the still hours of the night, and over a 
 bowl of punch, such as we used clandestinely 
 to quaff, talked of our school-boy days and 
 playmates. We were at school at Amherst in 
 the year 1829, and every five years we meet 
 again on the old playground, for the school is 
 still maintained. There the present genera- 
 tion of boys look with wonder on the old gray- 
 beards who fall into ranks— thinner ranks, alas, 
 at every meeting ; and when they see us after 
 roll-call at our regular game of foot-ball, their 
 astonishment knows no bounds. And I will 
 
MEETING OF OLD SCHOOLMATES. \J 
 
 tell you what boy — alas, that he has left us — 
 could best kick the foot-ball, could best wres- 
 tle, run fastest, was the most athletic gymnast, 
 was the most jovial youngster, though perhaps 
 the laziest student of us all — Henry Ward 
 Beecher. " John, I never envied anybody but 
 you/' he said not long ago, "and that only 
 once. It was when you threw the spit ball at 
 old Master Colton, and hit him square on the 
 top of his bald head. I always missed him." 
 
 We had a festive night, closing it with a 
 sound sleep, won by exercise and pleasant 
 reminiscences. In the morning a hearty break- 
 fast, a warm adieu, and then a gallop back to 
 Mohegan, stopping again for lunch at the cas- 
 tle built by " Hackaliah Bayley, who imported 
 the first elephant into these U-nited States — 
 old Bet ; of course you've heard of old Bet." 
 
 Now you too have heard the story, if you 
 have never heard it 'before, and you know how 
 two days may be passed enjoyably in the 
 country in winter, while you are lying in bed, 
 or loafing at your club, or in the hands of some 
 doctor whose interest it is not to recommend 
 to you the practice of equestrianopathy. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Notes of a Road Journey from New York to 
 Boston. — The Turnpikes. — Life in the 
 Far mi Jtg Regions. — Religion in the " Hill 
 Tozvns." — The " Commercial Room " at 
 Hartford. — An Aged Amherst Instructor. 
 — A Soldier of Napoleon. — The Old Stage 
 House. 
 
 I WAS once visiting in Southern California a 
 ranch owned by an old Mexican gentleman 
 who was unavoidably annexed when the terri- 
 tory was acquired by the United States. The 
 proprietor, whose surroundings indicated pros- 
 perity although its modern accompaniments 
 were wanting, nevertheless possessed an ele- 
 gant carriage, which particularly attracted my 
 attention because it was not in keeping with 
 the other accessories of the estate. "That," 
 said my venerable friend, as he tapped it with 
 his cane, " belongs to my granddaughter. She 
 was educated in San Francisco, and I bought 
 
 18 
 
NO TES OF A ROAD JO URNE Y. 1 9 
 
 it to please her, but I never use it myself. At 
 my age of eighty-five it is not safe to take any 
 risks, so I stick to my saddle." I will not say 
 that I am so apprehensive of danger, for I 
 frequently am transported from place to place 
 in cabs, railway cars, and steamships, but my 
 chief pleasure in locomotion is when I find 
 myself, to use a Western phrase, " on the out- 
 side of a horse." 
 
 I had accepted an invitation to a Thanksgiv- 
 ing dinner at Boston, and as I am the owner of 
 a thoroughbred mare who might be idle for 
 want of exercise in my absence, and as I myself 
 had no business occupation which might not 
 brook delay, I thought that an appetite for the 
 turkey would be increased, and that I might at 
 the same time refresh my memory by the 
 sight of ancient landmarks, if I should saddle 
 the mare and ride to my destination. 
 
 I am perhaps a relative of one of the most 
 valued correspondents of The Evening Post 
 — at any rate, I belong to the family of the 
 Old Boys. I have read with great interest his 
 reminiscences of the highways and byways of 
 New York City, and as his country cousin I 
 proposed to investigate the highways and 
 byways that connect the metropolis of busi- 
 
20 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 ness and wealth with the metropolis of litera- 
 ture and art. 
 
 As a young boy, sixty-five years ago, I had 
 travelled from Boston to New York in a stage- 
 coach, and now as an old boy I desired to 
 retrace my steps. There are few of us who 
 would not wish to retrace the steps we have 
 made in such a length of years, to correct our 
 wanderings and to live our lives over again, 
 following in the straight line of duty. 
 
 I felt assured that after this long interval of 
 time I could find my way back without much 
 difficulty, as most of it would be over the old 
 turnpike roads. I remembered the story that 
 Long Tom Coffin tells in the " Pilot" of his 
 wagon trip from Boston to Plymouth and of 
 " the man who steered — and an easy berth he 
 had of it ; for there his course lay atween walls 
 of stone and fences ; and, as for his reckoning, 
 why, they had stuck up bits of stone on end, 
 with his day's work footed up ready to his 
 hand, every half-league or so. Besides, the 
 landmarks were so plenty that a man with half 
 an eye might steer her, and no fear of getting 
 to leeward." 
 
 Fanny was never put to harness but once, 
 and then she kicked herself out of it. I am 
 
THE NEUTRAL GROUND. 21' 
 
 glad that she did, for nobody ever tried the 
 experiment with her again. She is a solid 
 beast eight years old, convex chest and long 
 pasterns, weighs in horse parlance " nine 
 hund'd and a half," with a straight back and 
 high withers built up for the purpose. Her 
 value — well, you can't buy her. 
 
 She was at Irvington, and thither I went in 
 an early morning train from New York, and 
 started at eleven o'clock across the country to 
 reach the old Boston post-road to New Haven, 
 passing through the charming county of 
 Westchester, the region of the " neutral 
 ground " of the Revolution, made famous by 
 the alternate occupancy of the American and 
 British armies, the wild raids of the cowboys, 
 the capture of Andre, and the romance of 
 Cooper which has immortalized reality by 
 clothing it in the garb of that enduring fiction, 
 "The Spy." 
 
 We were informed that we were now pass- 
 ing through the property of an eminent finan- 
 cier. Before he became the purchaser of these 
 lands along the New York City and Northern 
 Railroad reports were industriously circulated 
 that fever and ague prevailed to an alarming 
 extent. The lands were consequently sold at 
 
22 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 a very low price. But after they had been 
 bought there was an immediate sanitary im- 
 provement, and they are now perfectly healthy, 
 and are held at a high price. 
 
 Riding through the pretty county town of 
 White Plains over fine macadamized roads, 
 bordered by many attractive residences, we 
 came to Port Chester, where we fed our horses 
 and dined, my companion, who had accompa- 
 nied me thus far, to my great regret returning 
 to Irvington. 
 
 I was now upon the old stage road running 
 closely by the side of the railway, but rising 
 frequently over the hills from which far more 
 extensive views of the Sound could be obtained 
 than from the windows of the cars. There is a 
 succession of large towns, villages, and country- 
 houses that have all sprung into life since the 
 days of the old stage-coach. The traveller of 
 those times would recognize nothing now ex- 
 cept the waters beyond the shore, and even 
 these are covered by craft which to his eyes 
 would seem strange as compared wi£h the tiny 
 sloops that then answered all the purposes of 
 traffic between the embryo cities of New York 
 and Boston. Least of all would he understand 
 the meaning of those tall poles crossed at their 
 
SIL ENT MONITORS. 2 3 
 
 tops, and the network of wires that carry the 
 unspoken messages we cannot hear, and of 
 which they could not dream any more than 
 they could imagine communication with the 
 isolated stars, which may be a reality sixty-five 
 years hence for the boy of seven years who 
 now travels in the cars. 
 
 The telegraph poles and wires were as serv- 
 iceable to me as were the " walls of stone and 
 fences " to Long Tom Coffin. I could not 
 well miss my road to Norwalk where I passed 
 the first night, and to New Haven, my second 
 resting-place. On the third day, from New 
 Haven to Hartford I had the same guidance, 
 but the road was of a character entirely differ- 
 ent. 
 
 Were it not for those silent monitors, the 
 gray forefathers of Connecticut might, if they 
 could arise from their graves, walk almost from 
 end to end of this old turnpike of thirty-six 
 miles, connecting the former rival capitals of 
 their State^ without perceiving even a shadow 
 of change. Perhaps the houses by the wayside 
 may have grown older, but they look as if they 
 never could have been new. Their paint has 
 not worn off, for painted they never were. 
 They are not enclosed by " stones themselves 
 
24 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to ruin grown," for the stone walls stand at the 
 borders of the road as they were laid up two 
 centuries ago. Why is it that immortal man 
 so soon becomes forgotten and unknown, while 
 these old stone walls stand as they were piled, 
 and from century to century bid defiance to 
 the ravages of time ? 
 
 I am sure that we all look with a reflection 
 like this on the memorials of the past, and 
 often ask of ourselves how it can be that he 
 whose desire it is to live on and to live forever 
 in this world of happiness which might increase 
 as year follows year, should be cut off and 
 consigned to the dust, while these inanimate 
 things, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, enjoy- 
 ing nothing, should be gifted with a useless 
 immortality. 
 
 Still, as I looked at the faces of some of 
 those old farmers and talked with many of them 
 who neither knew nor cared for anything in 
 the outside world, I almost imagined that they 
 were the men who had laid up these very walls, 
 and that they too were stolidly immortal. Cer- 
 tain I was that if their ancestors could come 
 back to earth, they would be as much at home 
 among their descendants as among the fences 
 they had built. 
 
THE TURNPIKE. 25 
 
 What strange ideas those old fellows had of 
 road building. The engineers of their day, if 
 engineers there were, were impressed with the 
 conviction that a turnpike should be built in 
 an absolutely straight line, no matter what ob- 
 stacles there might be in the way. It never 
 occurred to them that a fly could crawl around 
 an orange with less effort than he would make 
 in crawling over it, and that the distance would 
 be the same. If the spire of the Strasbourg 
 Cathedral had stood in their way, they would 
 not have budged one inch to the right or to the 
 left. Like ancient mariners before great circle 
 sailing was adopted, they fully believed that 
 from east to west was a direct course, and in 
 trying to establish the mathematical axiom 
 that a straight line forms the shortest connec- 
 tion between two given points, they really 
 succeeded in demonstrating its falsity. 
 
 People who travel by rail through the new 
 and prosperous towns that border the line be- 
 tween New Haven and Hartford can form no 
 idea of the contrast presented by the old route. 
 Two distinct phases of civilization are apparent. 
 Much has been said lately in the newspapers 
 of the decay of religious observances in New 
 England. This is true of places where the new 
 
26 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 civilization prevails, for the railroad has dealt 
 a heavy blow upon the theology of our fathers. 
 One writer says truly that " these eastern coun- 
 ties of Connecticut are not physically the best 
 part of the State, but manufactories and rail- 
 roads have opened new lines of worldly prosper- 
 ity and have brought in a population that is 
 little inclined to support religious services." 
 
 On my road I passed through many "hill- 
 towns," and as part of the journey was pursued 
 on a Sunday, when at some times I followed 
 the turnpike and at others the road near the rail- 
 way, I was struck by the marked difference in 
 the demeanor of the residents. Early in the 
 morning the Roman Catholics of a railroad 
 town were on their way to mass, with a view 
 of compressing their " Sabbath " into an hour 
 before breakfast, and then devoting themselves 
 to amusement for the rest cf the day. Getting 
 back into a hill-town a few hours afterwards, 
 there was a cessation of all work, and not even 
 a child dared to amuse itself. The quietude 
 of nature seemed to have communicated itself 
 to the souls of men and to the bodies of animals, 
 and I believe that every horse thereabouts 
 keeps an almanac in his brain, and that he can 
 calculate with certainty upon his day of rest; 
 
SUNDA Y LA WS. 2J 
 
 Men, women, and children were soberly wend- 
 ing their way to meeting, keeping step as it 
 were to the slow tolling of the bell, and happy 
 indeed were these hill-town people when there 
 was not heard the discordant clang from a rival 
 belfry, but all of them were assembled in " the 
 old meeting-house " as one flock under one 
 shepherd. 
 
 In the olden times it would have been very 
 wicked to ride on the Sabbath through this 
 country on horseback. Indeed, I can well re- 
 member when such a practice would not have 
 been tolerated in the immediate neighorhood of 
 Boston. Riding and driving were both sinful, 
 but the former was reprehensible in a higher 
 degree. Sixty-five years ago no one would 
 have dared to mount a horse on the Sabbath, 
 and I recollect witnessing the arrest of a coun- 
 tryman who having sold his load of wood on 
 Saturday, was unable to return on account of 
 the rain until Sunday morning. The excuse 
 was not admitted and he was locked up until 
 Monday. This happened six miles from Bos- 
 ton in Dorchester, from whence came the first 
 colony to these hill-towns and settled itself at 
 Windsor. Its early history is an instructive 
 study. It may aid us in getting rid of some 
 
28 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 very erroneous ideas we have entertained of 
 the intolerance of our Puritan forefathers, and 
 we may thereby discern in what this sup- 
 posed fault really consisted. We shall find 
 that a more liberal spirit prevailed among the 
 churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries than was afterwards exhibited in the 
 earlier part of the nineteenth century, and per- 
 haps even at the present day. It is true that 
 there were some terrible preachers like Ed- 
 wards, who, later on, endeavored to " per- 
 suade men by the terrors of the law " ; but al- 
 though the Assembly's catechism was taught 
 on general principles as a text-book, — which 
 might as well have been written in Greek or 
 Hebrew, — and not infrequently, profoundly 
 soporific, unintelligible, and consequently harm- 
 less hydra-headed discourses on original sin 
 and election were preached in the absence of 
 such exciting topics as are now at hand, it is 
 simple justice to the memory of the clergy of 
 those days to say that in the main, their ser- 
 mons were practical, conveying to men views 
 of daily duty which they could not obtain 
 through the mists of theology. Such was the 
 teaching, for the most part, of the old minis- 
 ters of New England. They were honest, 
 
NEW ENGLAND MINISTERS. 29 
 
 faithful, good men. They were as truly the 
 clergy of an established church as were the 
 bishops and priests of the church from which 
 they had seceded. The law of the state, 
 founded on the pretence of religious liberty, 
 but combining in itself civil and ecclesiastical 
 power, delegated to them an almost absolute 
 control over the religious and secular conduct of 
 their parishioners. If one of them dared to do 
 anything of which the minister might disap- 
 prove he became an outcast from society as 
 well as an " alien from the commonwealth of Is- 
 rael." Whether men belonged to the church or 
 not, they were by statute assessed for the sup- 
 port of the gospel, and unless they " signed off " 
 to become members of other societies, whether 
 they went to meeting or not, they were 
 obliged to contribute for the support of the 
 gospel as preached in the old meeting-house. 
 
 It was a most natural desire on the part of 
 the established clergy to keep their flocks 
 from straying into other fields. For this pur- 
 pose they pursued a policy of conciliation. 
 However much they might for want of 
 other matter preach of " God's plans and his 
 eternal purpose," all that they required of their 
 hearers was a silent assent to what they could 
 
g WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 not understand as evidences of their faith in 
 things not seen, and that their works should be 
 in accord with the ten commandments, and 
 especially with the eleventh, which they had 
 taken the liberty to add. " Thou shalt go to 
 meeting twice every Sabbath and pay thy 
 parish taxes." 
 
 A conformity to this obligation, in addition 
 to a good moral life with due reticence of opin- 
 ions, afforded sufficient evidence that a man 
 was a Christian. In short, beyond the essen- 
 tial requisite of a good character, the great 
 point which the old ministers endeavored to 
 bring to bear on their parishioners was that 
 they should hold fast to the monopoly of relig- 
 ious observances, and that they should combine 
 to prevent all outsiders from religious action 
 in opposition to it. 
 
 These excellent men would not have for- 
 given me for riding on horseback on the Sab- 
 bath day, but I will atone for the offence 
 by preaching from the saddle this sermon in 
 vindication of them, bringing it to a close by 
 quoting the simple yet comprehensive cov- 
 enant, which they brought with them from 
 their landing-place on the shores of New Eng- 
 land, and which was a sufficient rule of prac- 
 
DORCHESTER COVENANT. ? l 
 
 tice for them until a more modern theology 
 introduced the bigotry which has been so 
 falsely laid to their charge. 
 
 " Dorchester, 
 "Ye 23d day of ye 6th month (1630). 
 "We, whose names are subscribed, being 
 called of God to join ourselves together in 
 Church communion, from our hearts'acknowl- 
 edging our own unworthiness of such a privi- 
 lege or of the least of God's mercies, and like- 
 wise acknowledging our disability to keep cov- 
 enant with God or to perform any spiritual 
 duty which God calleth us unto, unless the 
 Lord do enable us thereunto by his spirit 
 dwelling in us, do, in the name of Christ Jesus, 
 our Lord, and in trust and confidence of his 
 free grace assisting us, freely covenant and 
 bind ourselves solemnly, in the presence of 
 God himself, his holy angels, and all his ser- 
 vant^ here present, that we will, by his grace 
 assisting us, endeavor constantly to walk to- 
 gether as a right ordered congregation or 
 church, according to all the holy rules of a 
 church body, rightly established, so far as we 
 do already know it to be our duty, or shall fur- 
 ther understand it out of God's Holy Word, 
 promising first, and above all, to cleave unto 
 him as our chief and only good, and to our 
 Lord Jesus Christ as our only spiritual hus- 
 band and Lord, and our only High Priest and 
 Prophet and King. And for the furthering of 
 
32 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 us to keep this blessed communion with God, 
 and with his Son Jesus Christ, and to grow up 
 more fully herein, we do likewise promise, 
 by his grace assisting us, to endeavor the es- 
 tablishing among ourselves, of all his holy or- 
 dinances which God hath appointed for his 
 churches here on earth, and to observe all and 
 every of them in such sort as shall be most 
 agreeable to his will, opposing to the utmost of 
 our power whatsoever is contrary thereunto, 
 and bewailing from our hearts our own neglect 
 thereof in former time, and our polluting our- 
 selves therein with any sinful inventions of 
 men. 
 
 And, lastly, we do hereby covenant and prom- 
 ise to further to our utmost power the best 
 spiritual good of each other, and of all and 
 every one that may become members of this 
 congregation, by mutual instruction, reprehen- 
 sion, exhortation, consolation, and spiritual 
 watchfulness over one another for good ; and 
 to be subject, in and for the Lord, to all the 
 administrations and censures of the congrega- 
 tion, so far as the same shall be guided accord- 
 ing to the rules of God's Holy Word. Of the 
 integrity of our hearts herein, we call God, the 
 searcher of all hearts, to witness, beseeching 
 him so to bless us in this and all other enter- 
 prises, as we shall sincerely endeavor, by the 
 assistance of his grace, to observe this holy 
 covenant and all the branches of. it inviolably 
 forever ; and where we shall fail for to wait on 
 
AGRICULTURAL DECAY. 33 
 
 the Lord Jesus for pardon and for acceptance 
 and for healing for his name's sake. 
 
 Surely in this simple yet comprehensive 
 covenant there was nothing that savored of 
 intolerance. 
 
 It is quite true that this region is " not phy- 
 sically the best part of the State." Indeed, 
 there is not much of Connecticut that is physi- 
 cally good, if by that term is understood 
 adaptation to agriculture, especially agriculture 
 which comes into competition with that of the 
 great West. Tobacco and onion culture in the 
 river bottoms is about all that yields a profit. 
 
 It is not easy to understand by what process 
 the farmers of these inland districts manage 
 not only to support life, but to clothe them- 
 selves and their families with decency, to pay 
 their taxes, and to maintain their churches. 
 Old men tell sad stories of decadence since the 
 railroads destroyed their industry of supplying 
 the city markets. Farms, they say, are not 
 worth one-half of what was their value fifty 
 years ago. What a commentary is this on the 
 claim of the protectionists, that manufactories 
 encourage the farming in their neighborhood ! 
 Certainly the manufacturing interest is centred 
 3 
 
34 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 in New England, and all throughout New Eng- 
 land the value of farms is decreasing, so that 
 it is only by hard work and strict economy 
 that the farmer is enabled to pay the expenses 
 that this accursed tariff which he is told is 
 kept up for his benefit, entails upon him. 
 
 As the people of Berlin, a little town a few 
 miles south of Hartford, have found that there 
 is no money to be made out of land, they 
 have devoted their attention to the chicken 
 industry. 
 
 If Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes had been my 
 companion, he would have found a great deal 
 to interest him here. All the barnyards, fields, 
 and roads were overrun with birds, by no means 
 of a feather, but representatives of every possi- 
 ble variety of the domestic fowl. The magnifi- 
 cent Shanghai stalked by the side of the little 
 Bantam, and the other breeds intermingled. 
 The Plymouth Rock seemed to be the finest 
 specimen among them all. One old farmer, 
 who looked as if he had really landed on Ply- 
 mouth Rock, told me that on Plymouth Rocks 
 he depended entirely for a living. Although 
 the flocks freely congregate, their owners 
 manage to keep the breeds separate. I rode 
 out of the village at sunset, just as the various 
 
STORM-BOUND. 35 
 
 families, being driven in by the children, were 
 going to roost, and when their cackling died 
 away upon my ear I was again left to the 
 solitude of the old turnpike and to darkness, 
 until the lights of " Har'ford town " shone out 
 before me. 
 
 Fanny and I were detained two whole days 
 in Hartford by a storm of wind and rain. The 
 continued patter on the roof of the stable I 
 doubt not was as pleasing to the mare as the 
 lugubrious prospect from the hotel windows 
 was depressing for me. Still, when I called to 
 mind the graphic description given by Irving 
 of his rainy Sunday at a country inn, a true 
 philosophy led me to make a comparison in 
 my own favor. 
 
 At any rate, I could look out upon a city 
 street instead of a stable yard, and in place of 
 the melancholy cock standing with drooping 
 feathers on the dunghill, there were people to 
 be seen battling the storm, often with reversed 
 umbrellas, and sometimes swept by the furious 
 gusts around the corner and dumped into the 
 gutters. That, too, was a greater misery than 
 my own, and I confess that the old proverb 
 afforded me no little satisfaction. Besides, 
 within doors I had company. Several drum- 
 
3 6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 mers or " travellers," as they call themselves, 
 were also storm-bound. As we were all regis- 
 tering our names together, the clerk replied to 
 the question of one as to the charges. "Three 
 dollars and fifty cents per day is the rate, but 
 it is two dollars and fifty cents for travellers. 
 You are a traveller, aren't you ? " " Yes, sir," 
 he replied. When the same question was pro- 
 posed to me, my conscience did not forbid 
 me to answer in the affirmative. So I was 
 adopted into the fraternity and thereby learned 
 many of the tricks of the trade. I played 
 euchre with my fellow "travellers" to while 
 away the tedious hours. My partner travelled 
 for a crockery house, and of our opponents one 
 travelled for a California wine house, and the 
 other for a patent medicine firm. Others in 
 the room travelled for dry-goods, grocery, 
 saddlery, hardware, and all sorts of houses, 
 one of them for a peanut firm, carrying with 
 him a large bag of samples, the commodities of 
 the others being packed in enormous trunks. 
 My modest roll of baggage astonished them, 
 and when they asked what my business was, I 
 told them it was the horse business, and that I 
 could not very well bring my sample into the 
 house. 
 
HE VOL UTION IN TRADE. $7 
 
 My association with these peripatetic agents 
 taught me that a greater revolution in trade 
 than I had supposed possible had taken place 
 since the days of old. Readers of my own 
 age, and even those many years younger, will 
 remember the Exchanges in our cities where 
 merchants congregated for the transaction of 
 their own business, and how they have long 
 ago been abandoned, a swarm of brokers kindly 
 acting as intermediaries, while the principals 
 sit at ease in their offices and pay them their 
 commissions, which they, of course, charge 
 back again on those poor devils the consumers, 
 who are persons of no account when there is a 
 question of tariff or exactions of any kind 
 whereby a few men may be benefitted at the 
 expense of many. 
 
 But it must be admitted that by this com- 
 paratively new system of drumming, the coun- 
 try merchant often finds that he can purchase 
 his goods at a cheaper rate than when he was 
 obliged to make his semi-annual tours to the 
 great cities to obtain his supplies. It used to 
 be a costly trip for him, especially when r as 
 was not unfrequently the case, he fell into the 
 hands of the Philistines. One business often 
 ruins another; that of the decoy ducks is 
 
38 WINTER SKETCHES. ■ 
 
 gone ; the city hotels and places of amusement 
 have suffered, but, upon the whole, the con- 
 sumer in this case has not suffered, and the 
 country merchant, although by staying at home 
 he loses the opportunity of getting brightened 
 by contact with the outside world, escapes 
 fleecing and demoralization. 
 
 As this is necessarily a personal narrative, I 
 may be excused for bringing into it a personal 
 reminiscence to which I was led by the rainy 
 days at Hartford. 
 
 Francis Fellows, a venerable gentleman in his 
 eighty-third year, resided there, and was still 
 actively engaged in the practice of law. In 
 1829 and 1830 he was one of the principals of 
 a school with a title sonorous, but not more so 
 than it deserved, of " The Mount Pleasant 
 Classical Institution," at Amherst. Three 
 other teachers of a still more advanced age 
 still live, and all, like Mr. Fellows, are in 
 good physical and mental condition. This is a 
 proof that the large number of boys under 
 their charge treated them kindly, and to-day 
 those of us who survive hold them i-n the 
 highest respect and affection. 
 
 I could not lose the opportunity of calling 
 on my good old friend, and, although I cannot 
 
MOUNT PLEASANT BOYS. 39 
 
 compare myself in any other respect to the 
 great apostle, I felt that, like him, I was " sit- 
 ting at the feet of Gamaliel." He seemed 
 to remember the names of all his old pupils 
 and our various characteristics. It was grat- 
 ifying, because I knew he was sincere, to 
 hear him say that, although he was sometimes 
 obliged to punish us, not one of us ever gave 
 him real pain by our demeanor toward him. 
 "You were a pretty good boy, John, though 
 not one of the best," he said ; "you liked play 
 better than study." "You are right, sir," I 
 replied, " and it is as true now as it was then." 
 Enumerating several more, he came to 
 Beecher. 
 
 " Beecher," he said, " did not study more 
 than you did, but he was a boy that didn't 
 need to study. He had it all in him ready to 
 break out. The only thing to which he gave 
 any attention was elocution. He learned his 
 gestures at Mount Pleasant, and since that 
 time he has acquired matter to fit them. Yes, 
 he was at the head of his class in elocution, 
 and I believe he was at the head of his class 
 in wrestling and foot-ball. I don't remember 
 that he was remarkable for anything else." 
 
 And so the old teacher and the old pupil sat 
 
40 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 together and called to mind the memories of 
 the past and of the school of which I can truly 
 say, in the words of Lowell at Harvard: 
 " Dear old mother, you were constantly forced 
 to remind us that you could not afford to give 
 us this and that which some other boys had, 
 but your discipline and diet were wholesome, 
 and you sent us forth into the world with the 
 sound constitutions and healthy appetites that 
 are bred of simple fare." 
 
 On the next morning the southerly gale had 
 blown itself out and a cold north-west wind 
 was sending the scud flying through the sky. 
 Fanny, after her rest of two days, trotted 
 briskly out of the stable yard down through 
 the streets of " Har'ford town," over the Con- 
 necticut River bridge, and on to the frozen 
 ruts of the country road tov/ard Vernon, the 
 first town of importance on another turnpike, 
 the old "Boston and Hartford," a straight, 
 undeviating line that stretched originally for a 
 hundred miles from the eastern bank of the 
 Connecticut to the seaboard, and„can even yet 
 be traced until it is lost among the suburbs of 
 the metropolis. Before noon we had ascended 
 its highest point of elevation, 1500 feet above 
 the sea level, commanding a view of East and 
 
THE OLD FRENCHMAN. 4 1 
 
 West rocks near New Haven in the south-west, 
 of Holyoke range on the north, of the winding 
 river and of Nipsig Lake, which lay almost 
 directly beneath. For a long distance habita- 
 tions were scattered and far between. 
 
 Somewhat further on I came to a house 
 lonely, unpainted, and yet somehow, I could 
 not tell in what respect, different from any 
 farm-houses I had yet seen, except that 
 there were certain indications of refinement 
 about it, evident, but not easily described. 
 At the little wicker gate before it stood an old 
 man, of whom I inquired as to the distance of 
 the nearest town. He bowed politely and 
 replied with an accent which told me that he 
 was French. He was overjoyed when I ad- 
 dressed him in his native tongue. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur/' he said, " this is the first 
 time out of my own family that I have heard 
 my own language for the forty-five years that 
 I have lived in this lonely place. Paris, did 
 you say? It is different from this, is it not?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," I replied ; " I was there only 
 a few months ago, and I wish you could be 
 there to see the changes in the half-century of 
 your expatriation.'* And then I poured into 
 his greedy ears the story of the gay boulevards, 
 
42 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 the charming Champs Elysees, the Bois de 
 Boulogne, the little steamboats on the Seine, 
 the theatres, and all that makes the bright 
 capital of the world so attractive. The tears 
 coursed down his cheeks as he sighed and 
 said : "So you have seen all that, but tell me, 
 did you see his tomb ? I would like to see 
 the tomb of Napoleon more than everything 
 else, and then I would come back to this 
 wilderness to die." 
 
 "It is possible," I said, "that when a child 
 you may have seen the Emperor." 
 
 1 'As a child!" he exclaimed. "Look at 
 me ; how old do you think I am ? " 
 
 " Perhaps a little older than myself," I re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Monsieur, my age is ninety-five years," he 
 answered, and then he drew his bent form to 
 its full height, straight like the telegraph pole 
 at his side ; his eyes flashed with the bright- 
 ness of youth, and striking his hand upon his 
 heart, he exclaimed in words whose emphasis 
 will not bear translation : "Je snis vieux soldat 
 de Napoleon ! " 
 
 When I parted from the veteran, he gave 
 me a military salute, and on turning in my 
 saddle to look at him once more, I saw him 
 
SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE. 43 
 
 standing on the same spot with his arms folded 
 a V Empereur, lost in reveries of the past. 
 
 Since I have made these notes there has 
 appeared in the Boston Herald an interesting 
 sketch of the career of Frangois Radoux, born 
 in Brittany in 1790. He too was a soldier of 
 the empire, and was living in Portland, Me. 
 Very likely others still survive in France, but it 
 is scarcely possible that there are any more of 
 them to be found in the United States. I 
 wished that these two " venerable men who 
 have come down to us from a former genera- 
 tion " might be brought together to embrace 
 each other and to fight over those old battles 
 side by side. Their stories would be worthy 
 of a place in the well-worn war columns of the 
 Century magazine. 
 
 But time marches rapidly on the downhill 
 grade. I have now to make another note. 
 Radoux died a few months ago and the vieux 
 soldat whom I met upon the road stands guard 
 alone on the threshold of the tomb. 
 
 I drew up for the night at the hotel in 
 North Ashford. It was the old stage house of 
 former days. Evidently no change had come 
 over it but the change of decay. It stood 
 close upon the road, with a capacious stable 
 
44 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 near by, a porch with side seats at the front 
 door, a piazza leading around to the bar-room 
 more frequently entered, planks here and there 
 missing, the cornices rotted off, blinds for 
 some windows, half-blinds for others, no blinds 
 at all for the rest, and before it a gallows sign 
 with its paint obliterated, so that the form of 
 Gen. Washington or of a horse, whichever it 
 may be, could not be traced, swinging and 
 creaking on its time-worn hinges. The stable, 
 of course, had my first consideration. Riding 
 over the grass-grown track to the door, and 
 kicking against it to call out some sign of life, 
 a squeaking voice responded, and presently 
 emerged an old man whose clothes and hair 
 were covered with hayseed, for he had been 
 startled from his sleep. Rubbing his eyes 
 with a dazed expression, like that of Rip Van 
 Winkle as he wakes upon the stage, he in- 
 quired : " Who be you, and what do you 
 want ? " 
 
 " I want my horse put up for the night," I 
 replied. 
 
 " Where's your cattle ? " 
 
 " Cattle ? " 
 
 " Yes, cattle ; ain't you driving ? " 
 
 "Driving cattle? No, I came from New 
 
PLENTY OF ROOM. 45 
 
 York, am going to Boston, and intend to stop 
 here to-night." 
 
 " You don't tell ! Hain't seen the like for 
 more'n forty year. We don't take in a'most 
 nobody but drovers now. Well, ride in. I'll 
 bed your hoss down and feed him. Want hay 
 and oats both, I suppose." 
 
 The big door was swung wide open, and I 
 rode into an equine banquet-hall, deserted. 
 
 " Plenty of room here," I remarked, as I 
 looked upon the double row of horse stalls, 
 many of which were filled with hay, old har- 
 nesses, disjointed wagons, farming tools, and 
 odds and ends of everything. 
 
 " Plenty of room ; well, yes, I guess there is 
 now, but there wasn't plenty too much room 
 fifty year ago, mister. Every one of them 
 twenty-four hoss stalls had change bosses goin' 
 into and comin' out of em. Oh Lord, oh Lord, 
 how times has changed ! How when the mail 
 stage, — Joe Benham he always drove it — and 
 may be two and sometimes three extries, 
 rattled up to the door and the passingers tum- 
 bled out to the bar-room and got such new rum 
 as you can't get noways now, and then 
 marched into the eatin' room for their dinners, 
 we hosiers used to onharness the teams, lead 
 
46 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 'em smokin' into the stable, harness up the 
 fresh 'uns, and have 'em all ready for a new 
 start. Joe, he allers 'sisted on my holdin' on 
 to the nigh leader till he got up and took the 
 lines. I can see him now and hear him holler, 
 * Let 'em go, boy ! ' And away they went, 
 down the hill, extries after 'em — Joe, he allers 
 took the lead cause he card the mail — all in a 
 cloud of dust. Ah, them was the times — 
 times as was times. Damn the railroads! I 
 say. Well, you better go into the house, and 
 Miss Dexter'll git you some supper. Supper's 
 a'most ready, and I'll be in as soon as I've 
 bedded down your hoss." 
 
 A cheery light was gleaming from the 
 kitchen and bar-room windows as I entered the 
 door of the latter apartment, on which the 
 black-painted letters indicating its specialty, 
 were still distinctly legible. I was cordially 
 welcomed, although the same surprise was 
 manifested that I was not in charge of a drove 
 of cattle on my way to Brighton. ^ " Has boy 
 Andrew taken care of your horse ? " asked the 
 landlord. 
 
 " I turned her over to an old man in the 
 barn," I answered. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said, " that's all right ; that 
 
"BANQUET HALL DESERTED." 47 
 
 was boy Andrew. He was a boy in the old 
 stage time when my father kept the house, and 
 he has been boy ever since, and always will be. 
 Supper will be ready soon. I'm right glad to 
 see you. You're welcome to the best we've 
 got if you'll set down with the family. We 
 don't use the big room any more." And then 
 to show it, he opened a door on which " Din- 
 ing-room " in faded characters often scrubbed 
 over, was still plain enough. That banquet 
 hall too, was long since deserted and used now 
 but occasionally for a country ball to which 
 sleighing parties sometimes come from the 
 neighboring villages and farm-houses. The 
 long table and the chairs had disappeared and 
 all the indications of former occupancy were 
 the worn floors, with here and there the pine 
 knots which refused to wear down. 
 
 As I paced up and down the cheerless apart- 
 ment, a sadness again came upon me such as 
 all men must feel in the reflection that sentient 
 beings like ourselves with throbbing pulses, 
 animal spirits, and thinking brains, once living 
 on God's beautiful earth were now mouldering: 
 beneath its ground, and that we who occupy 
 their places must soon follow them, to be fol- 
 lowed turn after turn, in the ceaseless round of 
 
48 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 existence and death. God only knows why 
 He made us to live and to die. 
 
 Then the great bell which had summoned 
 those now departed guests to their meals, 
 called our little company to supper in a small 
 room adjoining the kitchen. " All we have," 
 said the landlady in excuse, " is tea, bread and 
 butter, milk, tripe, and sausages ; we are ten 
 miles from the railroad and from any town, and 
 the butcher comes only once a week, when he 
 brings the newspaper." 
 
 She needed not to make any apology. In 
 company with the family, including boy An- 
 drew, who entertained me with more reminis- 
 cences, I made a hearty meal. Soon afterward 
 the usual tavern loungers made their appear- 
 ance. The landlord was in a jovial and gener- 
 ous mood. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he, " we've got a visitor 
 to-night, and I am going to treat. Liquor 
 shan't cost any of you a cent. Call for gin or 
 cider as much as you want. The whiskey is 
 all out." 
 
 The invitation was accepted with alacrity. 
 " Fetch on your gin," was the general demand. 
 Afterward we had cider, then gin again, and so 
 the gin and cider alternated, and if they were 
 
A FESTIVE EVENING. 
 
 49 
 
 not actually mixed in the glasses, it amounted 
 to very much the same thing. I could fill these 
 pages with the stories that were told in the in- 
 tervals of the game of " high low Jack," which 
 we played with a pack of well-worn cards, 
 that had done duty, perhaps, ever since the 
 old stage times. But owing to the circum- 
 stances, the recollection of these stories is some- 
 what confusing. It was not exactly one of the 
 noctes ambrosiaruz of Christopher North, but 
 the enjoyment on an inferior plane was like 
 unto theirs. 
 
 The clock, which had been set by my watch — • 
 for, unknown to all our friends, to whom it did 
 not matter, it had been nearly an hour out of 
 the way — at length admonished us that the 
 festivities should come to an end. The neigh- 
 bors bade me a cordial good-by and filed out 
 into the cold air on their homeward tramp, 
 and the landlord, with a tallow dip in hand, 
 conducted me to my room. Again we 
 walked through the dreary dining-hall, and 
 then through a long entry-way, whence oppo- 
 site the front door a wide staircase with 
 carved balustrades ascended. 
 
 Arriving at the top, he opened the door of a 
 large corner room of four small-paned windows 
 4 
 
50 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 with pendent blue-paper curtains partly rolled 
 and held by white strings. He said "good- 
 night," and then I looked around at the thread- 
 bare carpet, the bureau with here and there a 
 knob, the wooden chairs, and the pine table 
 surmounted by basin and pitcher. But what 
 especially attracted my attention was the enor- 
 mous four-post bedstead with fluted columns 
 rising nearly to the ceiling, the patchwork quilt, 
 and the valance which hung half way to the 
 floor. I did not need to open a window for 
 air. Every sash was loose. The room was 
 sufficiently ventilated, and it was cold but not 
 damp, although a fire had not probably been 
 lighted there for years and years. So I climbed 
 up to the elevated sleeping plane, and falling 
 into a deep valley with mountains of feathers on 
 either side, was soon asleep, notwithstanding 
 that north-west gale which beat its night-long 
 tattoo on the rattling window sashes. 
 
 After an early breakfast I bade adieu to my 
 liberal host. Alas for him, he lives ten miles 
 from a railroad, and knows little of the ways 
 of the world and of its impositions on the 
 guileless traveller. I had had two " square 
 meals," an unlimited supply of gin and cider, 
 and a bed ; Fanny had had good care, a peck 
 
ARRIVAL A T BOSTON. 5 I 
 
 of oats, and all the hay she could eat, and our 
 bill was one dollar. When I put a quarter 
 into the hands of the boy Andrew, he looked 
 at it intently before he closed his fingers upon 
 it, and remarked : " Wall, you must have plenty 
 o' money. In the old stage times passengers 
 never gin me more'n ninepence, not many of 
 'em more'n fopence happ'ny, and most of 'em 
 nothin'." 
 
 I still followed the turnpike to Hopkinton, 
 where we passed the last night before reaching 
 our destination, and arrived in Boston on the 
 next day, losing all traces of the ancient turn- 
 pike on reaching Ashland, about fifteen miles 
 from the city. 
 
 We were six days upon the road exclusive 
 of the involuntary detention of two days at 
 Hartford. By our route, which was not so 
 direct as it might have been had I struck across 
 from New Haven, we covered the distance of 
 211 miles, an average of about thirty-five miles 
 per day, the longest having 1 been thirty-nine 
 miles, and the shortest, which was the last, 
 twenty-eight. 
 
 Appetite was not wanting for my Thanks- 
 giving dinner. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Old Church and the Old Home. — The 
 Pretty Neponset. — Changes in a Boston 
 Suburb. — A Story of Webster. — Notes by 
 the Way. — The Pilgrims and Massasoit. 
 
 It is not so easy to get out of Boston as it 
 was before Boston stretched itself over the 
 surrounding country, leaving the little penin- 
 sula on which it was founded, to serve mainly 
 for business purposes, while residences have 
 been built up on the newly acquired territory. 
 Not content with the absorption of Roxbury 
 and Dorchester, the city has brought the more 
 distant country into town by cutting down its 
 hills and transporting them into the. Back Bay, 
 which has now become the home of fashion 
 and of aesthetic religion. 
 
 Riding out over Washington Street, I call 
 to mind the time when it was " the Neck," I 
 remember when Lafayette entered the city 
 
 53 
 
THE FOREIGN TIDE. 53 
 
 upon it in 1824, and how the high water that 
 day washed upon both sides of the street. 
 Since then Boston has outgrown herself, and 
 has overflowed, because of the foreign tide 
 that has poured in upon her. One can 
 scarcely take up a Boston newspaper without 
 reading columns of reminiscences, in which 
 there is always a touch of sadness, a mourning 
 for departed days. Wealth and splendor, 
 population and even culture, afford no conso- 
 lation to these desponding antiquarians. The 
 Boston of their fathers, the American Boston, 
 has gone, and a new Boston, a Boston of 
 foreigners, has taken its place. When Dor- 
 chester twenty years ago was annexed, it 
 seemed very hard for the people of that 
 ancient borough to give up its name. They 
 thought that Boston should have been an- 
 nexed to Dorchester, but they were obliged to 
 succumb to numbers, and the alien tide has 
 swept over them too, and has nearly washed 
 out their Puritan Sabbath, to which they held 
 on longer with traditional reverence than 
 almost any other town in Massachusetts. 
 
 I ride slowly and reverently by the old 
 meeting-house and by the old homestead 
 where I was born. The latter is sacred to my 
 
54 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 own heart, but the former has a history for the 
 public. Within its walls was blown the first 
 bugle note of actual war between orthodoxy 
 and Unitarianism, in 1811. There was open 
 mutiny, and an attempt to eject by force from 
 his pulpit the minister who represented the 
 Trinitarian creed. Then came a division, but 
 the bitter animosity engendered by this re- 
 ligious strife lasted throughout our childhood 
 and youth, enforcing a strict taboo upon the 
 social intercourse of families, throwing a wet 
 blanket over our juvenile spirits, and encour- 
 aging no little spiritual pride among us ortho- 
 dox children, who pitied the Unitarian boys 
 and girls because they were sure to be damned, 
 while we could not but envy them for their 
 better opportunities of enjoying the present 
 life. 
 
 What a commentary it all was upon faith 
 and works ! Wilcox kept the tavern opposite, 
 where on Sundays, before and after meeting, 
 he dispensed rum to his fellow church mem- 
 bers. He was a good man because he believed 
 in the doctrines of the Assembly's Catechism. 
 If he had denied them, and, conscientiously 
 closing his bar-room on Sundays, had still led 
 his otherwise exemplary life, he would have 
 
THE STO VE ENGA GEMENT. 5 5 
 
 been condemned to eternal punishment. But 
 he died at peace with his Maker and himself. 
 My father, his pastor, wrote the lines which 
 may be seen upon his gravestone : 
 
 With faith and works his life did well accord, 
 He served the public while he served the Lord. 
 
 Not many years after the declaration of doc- 
 trinal war, there arose in that old meeting- 
 house another controversy of startling propor- 
 tions, which impressed itself upon my early 
 childhood. This was the hard-fought stove 
 engagement. The self-denial exercised sixty 
 or seventy years ago for no other purpose 
 than that of escaping future punishment, in 
 going to meeting through a winter's storm, to 
 sit upon hard seats, and to kick our feet upon 
 an uncarpeted floor, the mercury sometimes 
 below zero, through the delivery of much 
 longer sermons than are inflicted upon us now, 
 cannot be appreciated by those who consider 
 it a pleasure rather than a duty to attend 
 churches where they may recline on soft up- 
 holstery in a balmy furnace heat, listening to 
 discourses of moderate length and of greater 
 scope and liberality. 
 
 Then, families were seen wending their way 
 
56 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to their seats, some of the children carrying in 
 their hands little tin foot-stoves set in slatted 
 frames, so that mamma or grandmamma at 
 least might have some comfort for her toes, 
 while steaming breaths ascended from the 
 pews, and the pulpit seemed to be occupied by 
 a high-pressure engine. 
 
 Such was the condition of things in the year 
 1820 or thereabouts, when some audacious in- 
 novators proposed the introduction of stoves 
 with long ranges of pipe for heating the house. 
 The war was fiercely waged, but fortunately it 
 did not result in another secession. At last 
 the stove party was victorious. Old " Uncle 
 Ned Foster " was foremost in the opposition. 
 He threatened to " sign off," but finally he 
 concluded to remain loyal and sit it out. So 
 on the first Sunday after the stoves had been 
 introduced, the old gentleman occupied his 
 pew as usual, the stove-pipe being directly over 
 him. There he sat with no very saint-like ex- 
 pression throughout the sermon, a red ban- 
 danna handkerchief spread over his head, and 
 his face corresponding to it in color. A gen- 
 eral smile circulated through the house, the 
 minister himself catching the infection, for 
 almost everybody excepting Uncle Ned was 
 
THE STOLEN RIDE. $7 
 
 aware that, the day being rather warm, no 
 fires had been lighted. 
 
 I have gone back many, many years. There 
 has not been so much change during all this 
 time in the old elms, the stone walls, and even 
 in the houses, but generations have gone and 
 come and gone again in these threescore years 
 and ten. We remember the places, but " the 
 places that once knew them shall know them 
 no more." 
 
 Just beyond the old church is a house which 
 has undergone various transformations and is 
 now a hotel. It was once occupied by Daniel 
 Webster. It brings to mind the first ride on 
 horseback that I can remember. Like all 
 stolea fruit it was sweet, and like stolen fruit it 
 left a bitter taste. Fletcher Webster and I, 
 little fellows of about seven years old, used to 
 go to school to Master Pierce on Milton Hill. 
 As our house was on his way, Fletcher was ac- 
 customed to call for me in the morning, and 
 we returned together in the afternoon, being 
 boarded out for dinner in the neighborhood of 
 the school-house at the rate of twelve and one- 
 half cents each for our meals. Saturday after- 
 noon of course " school did not keep." 
 
 One Saturday morning Fletcher came riding 
 
58 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 up to our door bareback on his father's beauti- 
 ful black mare. " Jump up behind, Johnny," 
 he cried ; " father's gone to Boston, school will 
 be out, and we'll get back before he gets 
 home ! " So Fletcher and I rode off down 
 through the village, across the bridge, and up 
 the hill for the rest of a mile to the school. I 
 am not sure whether the mare ran away with 
 us or not. We did not care, and we were very 
 happy. We tied Bessie to a tree in a clump 
 behind the school-house and went in to apply 
 ourselves diligently to our lessons. An hour 
 afterward, Master Pierce had a class up for 
 recitation. It was a warm day. The windows 
 and doors were open. Suddenly Mr. Webster 
 stalked into the little school-room. I am 
 pretty sure that I shall not live to the age of 
 Methuselah, but if I do I shall not forget that 
 scene. The class stopped their recitation. 
 Master Pierce stood still and the ruler dropped 
 from his hand making the only noise that 
 broke the dead stillness. Mr. Webster walked 
 up to his son and said in a deep tone, not so 
 very loud, but which seemed to me like a clap 
 of thunder, " Where's the mare ! " and then he 
 lifted Fletcher from his seat by the ear. He 
 told me afterward that his father said nothing 
 
THE OLD ROAD. 
 
 59 
 
 more at the time or when he came home. He 
 merely went with him to the tree where the 
 mare was tied, unhitched her, tied her behind 
 his chaise, and drove off. 
 
 Leisurely and sadly two little boys walked 
 home from school, and ever afterwards, going 
 and coming, they walked. 
 
 Fanny and I again went over the road that 
 the two school-boys had so often travelled 
 sixty-six years ago, down through the village, 
 across the bridge, and up the hill. In all this 
 time there has scarcely been a change. Boston 
 has spread itself everywhere but here. There 
 by the roadside is the cemetery, the " burying- 
 ground, " as it is still called. There lie the 
 early settlers, and should they rise from their 
 graves to-day, they would recognize the sur- 
 roundings. There are few new houses in 
 Milton Lower Mills village ; the amber-colored 
 water pours over the dam with the same cease- 
 less music to meet the salt tide of the Nepon- 
 set that flows to its base ; the same odor of 
 fresh water brought from its course above, and 
 of the chocolate ground at the mills, pervades 
 the air, for memory treasures the fond associa- 
 tions of all our senses. What country child 
 grown to old age does not remember the sweet 
 
60 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 briar, the syringa, or the tansy by the wayside 
 of his home ? 
 
 Everything of sixty-six years ago was still 
 where it was till we came to the site of the 
 little school-house, but the school-house is not. 
 More than half a century has passed since 
 Master Pierce was gathered to his fathers. 
 Daniel Webster's name alone is immortal. 
 His son, my little schoolmate, died upon the 
 battle-field, a sacrifice to the country that was 
 so ungrateful to his illustrious sire, while those 
 of us who survive them may thank God for 
 the memories of the life that has passed, for 
 the good in the life that now is, and for the 
 hope of the life to come. 
 
 It is all like the little river we have just 
 crossed, which has meandered for miles 
 through rich meadows, bringing away the col- 
 ors of their grasses and their flowers bright- 
 ened by the sunlight falling upon the quiet 
 basin in which for a time it rests until it leaps 
 over the falls and loses itself, as all-rivers are 
 lost at last, in the embraces of the boundless 
 sea. But is the pretty stream lost merely be- 
 cause it has poured itself into the ocean? 
 Does it not yet live in my memory and in 
 thousands of other memories besides? It is 
 
THE BLUE HILLS. 6 1 
 
 one of those things of beauty that are joys for- 
 ever. Exhaled to the skies, it may float " a 
 sun-bright glory there," and wafted to an- 
 other continent, may dance down from the 
 summits of the Alps and water the valleys of 
 Switzerland. No, there is nothing lost. 
 When we ourselves, less useful in the world 
 than its rivers, shall drift away into the ocean 
 of eternity, we, like them, may be exhaled to 
 serve a better purpose in some other sphere 
 of the universe. 
 
 Half mounting Milton Hill, we turn to the 
 right, entering upon the old Taunton turn- 
 pike, and keeping a southerly course for a few 
 miles, gain the highest point, which is in the 
 notch of the Blue Hills. Approaching it, and 
 afterwards descending the southern slope as 
 the mist hangs over the neighboring hills, it 
 required little effort of the imagination to 
 transport one's self to the White Mountains 
 or the Sierras, so charmingly delusive was the 
 scenery as it was thrown out of proportion by 
 the hazy atmosphere. Thus we may travel 
 away many miles at a very cheap rate, and 
 when the sun breaks out, we may come as 
 easily home. 
 
 For long reaches this old turnpike is little 
 
02 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 travelled. In some places the trees have 
 sought companionship in their loneliness, lean- 
 ing over to each other and intertwining their 
 branches. Then again are long, barren 
 stretches, small villages with meeting-houses 
 that were painted once, blacksmiths' shops 
 where anvils ring no longer, " English and 
 West India Goods Stores " which have not 
 many English or West India goods to sell, be- 
 cause population is wanting, for farms are now 
 valueless. Occasionally as we mount a hill we 
 get a view of towns a few miles upon the left, 
 the Randolphs and the Bridgewaters, with 
 their shiny-spired churches and clustered 
 white houses and shops, manufacturing towns, 
 prosperous at the expense of other people, and 
 in the distance we hear the triumphant shout 
 of the iron horse and the clatter of his hoofs. 
 
 Taunton, or Tar'n, as it is called by the na- 
 tives, is one of these thriving factory towns ; 
 and, moreover, it is an exceedingly pretty town, 
 but its chief attractions for us were a good 
 stable and a well-kept hotel, where it was 
 convenient to pass the night, as we had accom- 
 plished somewhat more than half the distance 
 that separates Fall River from Boston. 
 
 We jogged along leisurely on the next day, 
 
A ROUGH COUNTRY. 6$ 
 
 for we had not much more than twenty miles 
 to go over, and the snow which had fallen in 
 the night, and was still falling, rendered Fanny 
 very uncomfortable on her feet. 
 
 There is little of interest upon the road, bleak 
 as it is in winter and scarcely less so in summer. 
 What brought our fathers to these inhospitable 
 shores is a question often asked, and generally 
 answered by attributing their coming to a 
 special dispensation of Providence. If there 
 ever was such a thing as a special Providence, 
 it manifested itself in the settlement of the colo- 
 nies of Plymouth and Narragansett Bay. Al- 
 though this part of the country was settled later 
 than the neighborhood about Boston, it now 
 has the appearance of a greater age. It was a 
 rough country to live in, and a rough country 
 to die in, as stony fields and grave-stones to 
 this day attest. To look at this ground now, 
 whose great crop is of rock — grass and pasture 
 land being exceptions to the general features 
 of the landscape — we can imagine its utter 
 desolation before any clearings were made. 
 Who of us would have taken such a wilderness 
 in this cruel climate as a gift, and would have 
 risked his life in fighting savages for the main- 
 tenance of such a possession ? 
 
64 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 The truth is that the Pilgrims came here 
 by accident, but when once they had settled 
 down, they determined to make the best of it. 
 
 In Young's " History of the Pilgrims," if I 
 remember aright the authority, we are told 
 that the company of the Mayflower were in the 
 habit of splitting their wood upon the quarter- 
 deck, and when the axe was not in use, they 
 laid it in the binnacle alongside of the compass, 
 which was so affected by the iron, that the ship 
 instead of bringing up at the Capes of the 
 Delaware or the Chesapeake, made the land at 
 Cape Cod. The passengers could not well get 
 away, and so, like the fox who had lost his tail, 
 they made a virtue of necessity, persuading 
 themselves and others whom they induced to 
 come after them, that this was indeed a goodly 
 land. 
 
 Robert Cushman, who was a sort of Com- 
 missioner of Emigration, issued an address to 
 the English Puritans in 162 1, in which he set 
 forth the attractions of this land flawing with 
 milk and honey, with all the persuasiveness of 
 a railroad pamphleteer of the present day. He 
 was also a prototype of Mr. Henry George in 
 his theory of agrarianism. He had no more 
 regard for the rights of the Indians than Mr. 
 
PURITAN AGRARIANISM. 65 
 
 George entertains for those of the proprietors 
 of real estate. 
 
 He says: ''Their land is spacious and void, 
 and there are few who do but run over the 
 grass as do also the foxes and wild beasts. 
 They are not industrious, neither have art, 
 science, skill, or faculty to use either the land 
 or the commodities of it ; but all spoils, rots, 
 and is marred for want of manuring, gathering, 
 ordering, etc ? As the ancient patriarchs there- 
 fore removed from straiter places into more 
 roomy, where the land lay idle and waste, and 
 have used it though there dwelt inhabitants by 
 them (as Gen. xiii.,6, 11, 12 and xxxiv. 21, and 
 xli., 20), so it is lawful now to take a land which 
 none useth, and make use of it." 
 
 Thus the Puritans -quoted Scripture, and 
 their descendants act upon the same lack of 
 principle without their canting hypocrisy when 
 they drive the Indians from the reservations 
 they have conceded to them. But our ances- 
 tors were filibusters in some respects of a more 
 honest type than those of the present day. 
 They merely wanted a little corner of the 
 "spacious and void land " for themselves, and 
 were willing to leave the natives in posses- 
 sion of all the rest. They endeavored to 
 
66 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Christianize them. Eliot translated the Bible 
 into their language. It was a labor of years, 
 and when it was completed, the tribes for 
 whom it was intended had died out, but still 
 the credit for it is due to that devoted mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 The Puritans were always ready to make 
 treaties and compromises before they resorted 
 to war and extermination. They behaved 
 much better in this respect than the Israelites, 
 by whose example they justified themselves, 
 and than their own descendants, who make 
 treaties but do not respect them. 
 
 As we travel over this wide and stone-walled 
 road along the banks of the river, beholding 
 the smoke of factories and hearing the noise of 
 machinery and railroad-engines, let us close 
 our eyes and ears to the surroundings, and go 
 back in our thought to the time when all this 
 was a wilderness, and to the journey made by 
 Hopkins and Winslow a few months after the 
 colonists landed at Plymouth. It is graphi- 
 cally related by Winslow himself, and the 
 whole story may be found in the interesting 
 work of Dr. Young, to which reference has al- 
 ready been made. Over the ground where I 
 was riding, these two bold men, escorted by 
 
MASSASOITS GRA TITUDE. 6j 
 
 a savage, went to visit Massasoit, who dwelt 
 upon yonder hill called Mount Hope. 
 
 This is the way the chief entertained them : 
 " Victuals he offered none, for indeed he had 
 not any. He laid us in the bed with himself 
 and his wife, they at one end and we at the 
 other ; it being only planks laid a foot from the 
 ground and a thin mat upon them. Two more 
 of his men for want of room pressed by 
 and upon us, so that we were more weary of 
 our lodging than of our journey." 
 
 Subsequently, Winslow gives a graceful nar- 
 ration of their journey to Mt. Hope, repeated 
 three years later. Their object in visiting the 
 sachem again, was to comfort and relieve him 
 in his illness. Their kindness was amply re- 
 warded, for whereas Massasoit was perhaps 
 likely to be influenced against the English by 
 other chiefs and by their jealous neighbors the 
 Dutch, the disinterested benevolence added 
 to the medical skill of Winslow and his com- 
 panions, so touched his heart that no repre- 
 sentations against the colonists could after- 
 wards have the least effect upon this noble and 
 grateful soul. 
 
 Policy would have dictated the easy exter- 
 mination of the whites, but gratitude was a 
 
6S 
 
 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 more powerful motive with him than the self- 
 protection which might properly have been 
 called patriotism. In whatever light the char- 
 acter and conduct of Massasoit may be viewed, 
 there is little doubt that his recovery from 
 illness through the instrumentality of Winslow 
 contributed largely to the firm establishment 
 of the Puritans and to the ruin of the Indian 
 tribes. When Massasoit died, and Philip, a 
 wiser if not a better man, endeavored to destroy 
 the colonists in 1675, he found that it was too 
 late. The cruel Philip was more patriotic than 
 the gentle Massasoit. 
 
 Fanny and I were more concerned with the 
 present than with all this that happened two 
 centuries and a half ago. Evening was drawing 
 on and the snow was beginning to fall thick 
 and fast. Go on, Fanny, carry me a little 
 further, and then the good steamer Bristol shall 
 carry us both to New York. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Railway Car, the Sleigh, and the Saddle- 
 horse:— Preparations for the Ride. — New 
 York Surroundings. — Reminiscence of Irv- 
 ing- — English and American Country 
 Homes. 
 
 " O Winter, ruler of the inverted year ; 
 Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled, 
 Thy breath congealed upon thy lips ; thy cheek, 
 Fringed with a beard made white with other snows 
 Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, 
 A leafless branch thy sceptre— and thy throne, 
 A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, 
 But urged by storms along its slippery way, 
 I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, 
 And dreaded as thou art." 
 
 It was a cold January day when I started 
 from the stable in Fifty-ninth Street for a 
 visit to the country. Railway travelling at 
 this season of the year is especially dangerous. 
 Axles are more .liable to break. Three fearful 
 accidents from this cause had lately been 
 recorded. For years after the introduction of 
 
 69 
 
7<3 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 railroads in England, orders were given to 
 reduce the speed on frosty days, but now, 
 although the risk is the same, speed is con- 
 sidered to be of more importance than human 
 life. So we rattle on, satisfying ourselves 
 from statistics that the average of death from 
 such causes is small, and calculating with rea- 
 sonable probability that we shall not be 
 counted among the dead. The same theory 
 prevails as to the warming and lighting of 
 cars. The great mortality from train wrecks 
 comes from the overturning of stoves and the 
 bursting of kerosene-oil lamps. But who con- 
 siders that? We estimate the averages, and 
 feel reasonably sure that we shall not be 
 among the victims. 
 
 Aside from the danger from a stove, the 
 stove is a villanous thing anywhere, notably 
 in a railroad car. It burns up the oxygen of 
 the air, and is accountable for much of the 
 pneumonia which at the present day hurries 
 people out of life. As an abomination it is 
 second only to steam-pipes. 
 
 Englishmen know some things better than 
 we do. We can teach them something about 
 baked beans, the frying-pan, a beneficent pro- 
 tective tariff, and more, but in sanitary science 
 
THE MURDEROUS KEROSENE LAMP. jl 
 
 they are our superiors. You will never find a 
 stove in an English railway carriage. Their 
 idea is that it is quite sufficient to keep the 
 feet warm and not to exhaust the lungs or 
 stupefy the brain. Passengers are provided 
 with cylinders of hot water, renewed as oc- 
 casion requires, on which to place their 
 feet ; they are therefore safe from stove acci- 
 dents. In the early railroad days of this coun- 
 try the cars were lighted by enormous candles, 
 giving all the illumination that was necessary 
 for ordinary purposes. If the car was over- 
 turned, the candles extinguished themselves 
 without causing any damage. But the insati- 
 able greed for reading, to which the newsboys 
 so much contribute, has supplanted the inno- 
 cent candle with the murderous kerosene 
 lamp, which in a collision scatters destruction 
 far and wide. The public must be accommo- 
 dated at the risk of their eyes at all times, of 
 their lives sometimes ; and when disasters 
 come, the railroad company is blamed, justly 
 in a degree, but unjustly inasmuch as the very 
 thing complained of is demanded by this inex- 
 orable public. 
 
 All this is not irrelevant. If it shall be pro- 
 ductive of good to call attention to it, it will 
 
72 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 be better than anything else I may have to 
 say. Besides, I am making my point. In win- 
 ter it is better to travel by some other means 
 than the railway. Sleigh-riding comes next. 
 That is not immediately dangerous, although 
 severe colds, conducive to fatal results, may 
 be contracted. I will admit that there is a cer- 
 tain degree of pleasure in it. At least, it was 
 pleasurable in former days. One of its attrac- 
 tions for me has been lost since we hear no 
 more the merry jingling of those great round 
 bells that were banded over the horse's back. 
 It is not now the fashion to carry them, and if 
 anything supplies their place, it is a tinkling 
 plaything, heard by the foot passenger just as 
 he is about to be run over. 
 
 There are still some of those old Dutch and 
 New England sleighs existing only as curios- 
 ities. They were made for comfort rather 
 than for speed. The fancy sleighs of to-day 
 have scarcely more back support than summer 
 trotting wagons. They are provocative of 
 rheumatism and kidney complaints. The seat 
 has hardly room for more than one person, 
 and if two occupy it, it is greatly to their dis- 
 comfort. This is not sleigh-riding as we used 
 to understand it. " Boxes " were they, those 
 
HEALTHFUL LOCOMOTION. 73 
 
 old sleighs ? Perhaps so, but very comforta- 
 ble boxes, high-backed, protecting the shoul- 
 ders and the neck, high sided, bottoms deeply 
 covered with straw ; they were sleighs we got 
 into, not upon ; there was abundance of room 
 for a companion, and when we were ensconced 
 in that box and so covered over with buffalo 
 skins that nobody could see exactly what we 
 were doing, and a merry song chimed in with 
 the music of those big bells, that was sleigh- 
 riding — with warm hearts instead of cold backs 
 and freezing toes. 
 
 There are two modes of healthful locomo- 
 tion left to us, pedestrianism and horseback 
 exercise. I make no account of the unnatural 
 bicycle, which doctors tell us is productive of 
 serious disorders when used to excess. Walk- 
 ing is a solitary entertainment. It has no vari- 
 ety in its measured step, although it is valu- 
 able for its economy when time is not consid- 
 ered. But there is the companionship of the 
 horse, and the change of gait bringing many 
 muscles into play, which give a peculiar zest to 
 riding. In summer the rapid motion prevents 
 a concentration of the sun's rays, but it is in 
 winter that it starts the blood into circulation, 
 and if the nose becomes red, the cheeks are 
 
74 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 red also and the glow of health pervades the 
 whole body. With proper precautions, the 
 rider needs not to suffer from cold even in the 
 severest weather. 
 
 The mercury stood fifteen degrees above 
 zero when I started from the stable on my 
 ride. I cannot call to remembrance the novel, 
 but it is one of Scott's, where the hero is about 
 to start for the Highlands in company with an 
 old farmer, who, before commencing the jour- 
 ney, carefully wraps the steel stirrups with 
 straw for the purpose of keeping their feet 
 warm. I have always remembered the hint, 
 and have found the practice to be effectual. 
 Avoid at all times, on foot or on horseback, 
 especially on horseback, the unhealthful India- 
 rubber boot or shoe. They are inventions of 
 the undertaker. If you would keep your feet 
 warm and dry, put on thick-soled boots of 
 thick upper leather too, not by any means 
 tight, and wear thin cotton socks with woollen 
 socks over them, and when riding iji very cold 
 weather, felt overshoes over the boots. These 
 are not in general use, and I have had some 
 difficulty in obtaining them. In response to 
 numerous inquiries, the shoe-dealers told me 
 that they had not this article. At last a face- 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR RIDING. 75 
 
 tious shop-keeper said that he had plenty of 
 felt slippers, and that he had one pair made 
 for a Chicago girl which were not large 
 enough for her, but he thought they might go 
 on over my boots. They did. So much for 
 stirrups and boots. 
 
 To change to the head. Put your soft felt 
 hat in your pocket. Wear a toboggan cap, 
 which may be pulled down over your ears, and 
 over your nose if need be, while you look 
 through the meshes. Wear a cardigan jacket, 
 and button your pea-jacket tightly around 
 your neck. Carry your stable-blanket in this 
 wise, remembering that you are to use a 
 McClellan saddle, as I counselled you to do 
 not long ago ; double the blanket, and, leaving 
 just enough to go under the saddle, allow the 
 most of it to fall over the horse's neck till you 
 are mounted. Having mounted, pull the re- 
 mainder of it over your legs, and start, for 
 now you are ready. You may face snow- 
 storms and blizzards, and you will actually 
 enjoy them as I did. 
 
 I was bound to Irvington, for my first stop- 
 ping place, and after riding through the park, 
 and bestowing pity upon some friends whom I 
 met perched upon their skeleton sleighs, vainly 
 
j6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 imagining t'hat they were enjoying themselves, 
 I struck out upon Jerome Avenue, which 
 appeared to be leading in the right direction ; 
 but I soon found that I was heading for 
 Woodlawn, the city of the dead, for a sarcastic 
 milkman informed me that I was going all 
 right if I wanted to be buried, but that if I 
 wanted to live a little while longer, and to get 
 to Irvington before night, it would be better to 
 strike across the country and find Broadway. 
 
 I don't think any cockney has an idea of the 
 crooked lanes that have been laid out, like the 
 streets of Boston by cows, within a few miles 
 of New York. I would sooner take my chance 
 of getting anywhere on a Western prairie than 
 of rinding my way out of town above Harlem 
 without assistance. However, Fanny and I, 
 by a combination of instinct, moderate intel- 
 ligence, and persistent inquiry, at last came in 
 sight of the North River, and headed up 
 stream. It was Broadway, as it is called until 
 it reaches Albany — not the Broadway of salted 
 railroad tracks and dirty slush, bordered by 
 shops and hotels ; but a Broadway now of 
 clean white snow, in summer of macadamized 
 road, shaded by oaks, elms, firs, and pines. 
 Now, the bare limbs of the great trees form a 
 
CO UNTR Y HOMES. J J 
 
 network through which we see the Hudson, 
 beautiful at all seasons, and the evergreens, 
 festooned with their wintry robes glittering in 
 the sunlight, are clothed in their gayest at- 
 tire. 
 
 From New York to Poughkeepsie, and even 
 beyond, there is a constant succession of com- 
 fortable, elegant, and sometimes ostentatious 
 country houses, owned by New York citizens, 
 many of them, chiefly of the latter class, oc- 
 cupied merely as summer residences. The 
 comfortable and the elegant, which are by no 
 means separate or incompatible, mostly pre- 
 vail, and the good taste of their owners in- 
 clines them to live in them all the year round. 
 
 There are many things that are " English, 
 you know," and there is nothing more ridicu- 
 lous than American servile imitations of for- 
 eign customs when they are not adapted to 
 our country or to our circumstances. But 
 there is much that we can learn from England, 
 and the refusal to avail ourselves of English 
 example when it points out an improvement 
 in our society or condition is almost as absurd 
 as toadyism and preposterous imitations of 
 language and dress. The English country 
 gentleman has been an " institution," yes, he 
 
?8 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 has been instituted, fixed, established in Brit- 
 ain for centuries. The English castle and 
 manor-house have been and are still the scenes 
 which English novelists most delight to pict- 
 ure. Comfort, that charming English word 
 for which there is no French equivalent, is 
 centered in them. 
 
 Beautiful as they are in summer, with their 
 parks and green lawns, it is in the winter that 
 they are at their best. It is in the winter that 
 people ''run down to the country" for their 
 most perfect enjoyment. Christmas was made 
 for the country. Those Christmas holidays ! 
 That blessed season of family reunions, of 
 unbounded hospitality, of universal benev- 
 olence commemorating the birth of Christ as 
 he would have it observed ! He may have 
 been the predicted " man of sorrows and ac- 
 quainted with grief," but if I read his history 
 aright, he who feasted with Pharisees, publicans, 
 and sinners alike, was of a temperament so 
 happy and genial that he would look^with more 
 favor on gatherings like these than upon the 
 life-long fasts and penances of fanatical priests 
 and saints. Christmas, merry Christmas ! Yes, 
 he intended that it should be merry. He meant 
 that man should be happy, not miserable, for 
 
WASHING TON IR VING. 79 
 
 it was from misery that he came to redeem 
 him. 
 
 If English writers have done so much to 
 impress us with the joys of their country life, 
 the purest writer of the purest prose in Amer- 
 ica has surpassed all of them in such descrip- 
 tions. Where, then, should he be more appre- 
 ciated than by those who dwell about his old 
 home ! Truly, the proverb is sometimes at 
 fault. This prophet is held in honor in his own 
 country. I once visited him at Sunnyside. It 
 was Sunnyside. He must have unconsciously 
 named it for himself, for he was the sunshine 
 of all around him. 
 
 Among all classes along the bank of the 
 Hudson he was personally known and loved. 
 A few days before we called upon him he had 
 been strolling about the country and had inad- 
 vertently crossed a farmer's field. The owner, 
 supposing him to be a tramp, had ordered him 
 off with coarse and insolent words; but having 
 discovered his mistake, he came to the cottage 
 to offer his apology in most abject terms. " I 
 was very sorry," said the courteous old man — 
 " not because of what he had said to me in the 
 first instance, but for his needless humiliation 
 when he came to see me. However, I think 
 
8o WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 that in future anybody may walk over his 
 grounds without being molested, for he prom- 
 ised me that, and so I am more than even with 
 him." 
 
 The writings of Irving and his dwelling at 
 Sunnyside have built up many Bracebridge 
 Halls in his neighborhood. Into one of them 
 I was thus pleasantly introduced. Riding up 
 the hill leading to Riverdale I was overtaken 
 by another horseman. Acquaintance on the 
 road is often made by complimentary remarks 
 upon the animals we ride. Thus, " That is a 
 nice pony of yours," to which the reply is 
 returned, " Yes, and I was just noticing the 
 pretty head of yours." The ice of convention- 
 ality is at once broken and the stream of 
 conversation flows on. Men can commit them- 
 selves to it without compromising their char- 
 acters. It is different with women. They 
 institute and undergo a great deal of prelim- 
 inary examination. Women have less confi- 
 dence in each other than men. They go to 
 church more frequently and call themselves 
 miserable sinners with more sincerity. But 
 they are not such miserable sinners as we are. 
 They are vastly better, and yet they are more 
 afraid of contamination from each other. Be- 
 
A WELCOME INVITATION. 8 1 
 
 fore they will make any advances, they take 
 long and accurate surveys of physiognomy, 
 contour, and dress, listening with all their ears 
 for an indication of good or bad breeding in 
 the language the object of avoidance or associ- 
 tion may use in addressing a third party, and if 
 such an one be not present, perhaps to the 
 orders given to a waiter at the table. The ice 
 to be broken is much thicker than ours, but 
 when it once is broken, the stream flows on with 
 a rapidity that it is impossible for us to 
 match. 
 
 " You will hardly get to Irvington in time for 
 lunch," said my young friend. " Here is the 
 avenue leading to our house and I am sure that 
 my mother and family will be glad to welcome 
 you." The invitation was accepted with the 
 cordiality with which it was given and thus a 
 delightful addition was made to the store of 
 my country friends. 
 
 It was through the gate-way of an avenue 
 leading to another mansion like unto that 
 where I had been so pleasantly entertained, that 
 as evening was advancing, I turned my horse, 
 arriving under the porte-cochere just as my 
 genial host was driving up in his sleigh from 
 the station, and as the young people were 
 6 
 
82 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 coming in from their healthful exercise of 
 coasting. 
 
 It was scarcely the time to draw the curtains 
 over the homelike scene of a blazing wood fire 
 throwing alternate lights and shadows upon the 
 ceiling, and glowing upon the faces of the 
 ladies of the household, to whom notice had 
 been given by the jingling bells that it was the 
 hour for the " five o'clock tea." That, too, is 
 " English, you know," and it is one of the 
 choice importations from the old country, to 
 which not even the most selfish protectionist 
 of home customs who has felt its soothing 
 influence can object. Let temperance people 
 also make a note of it, for it is coming to take 
 the place of the appetizing cocktail. The city 
 resident cannot fully appreciate it. To give it 
 zest it needs the transition from the frosty air 
 to the snug comfort of the country home, from 
 the out-of-door twilight to the interval within 
 doors when there is a suspension between day 
 and night, when there is yet light enough to 
 see, but not light enough to read. That is it 
 exactly ; that is the intervening half-hour 
 when business cares fade away and domestic 
 joys take their place. 
 
THE DINNER HOUR. 83 
 
 "Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, 
 Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
 And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 
 Shoots up a steaming column, and the cups 
 That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, 
 So let us welcome peaceful evening in. " 
 
 I am a cosmopolitan. I can dine anywhere 
 
 even at a railway station. 1 am used to 
 
 being summoned to dinner by the sound of 
 bell or gong, to seeing all the supplies, from 
 soup to ice-cream, piled upon the table at 
 once ; used to everything, for I was once used 
 to cutting my share of salt junk from the kid 
 with my sheath knife ; but now, although I do 
 not think that any one has the right to re- 
 proach me with aestheticism, I like to see a 
 well-dressed butler— not a flunky, but one 
 who is valuable for his usefulness, and not 
 disgusting because of his superciliousness — I 
 like to see such an one open the door and 
 make his bow, to hear him announce that the 
 dinner is served. I know that in this Brace- 
 bridge Hall there is a meaning in it. 
 
 Excessive is the politeness of the garcon of 
 a French table d'hote as he appears with 
 napkin over his arm, but we have no assurance 
 that the dinner will commend itself to us. I 
 
84 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 once heard the question of diet discussed. 
 There were various theories suggested as to 
 carbonaceous, and nitrogenous food, the di- 
 gestibleness of some things, the indigestible- 
 ness of others. But it seemed to me that the 
 question was settled by a bright, intelligent, 
 healthy woman who observed : " I don't think 
 it makes so much difference what or how much 
 we eat. It all depends on the company with 
 whom we eat it." Certainly in this case that 
 chief requisite was at hand, with all the taste- 
 ful appointments of the table. 
 
 More I will not say of the charming hospi- 
 tality of my friend and of his family, of the 
 delightful evening in his library, where I saw 
 nothing of the books but their covers, for 
 social intercourse was to me more agreeable 
 than anything they might contain. Nor will I 
 say much of the billiards at which later on I 
 gained but an occasional victory, nor of the in- 
 ternal night-cap, the dreamless night, the sub- 
 stantial breakfast, the kind good-byes, the cor- 
 dial invitation to come again, which I never 
 decline. I have sought to give a sketch of 
 American country houses in the winter. It is a 
 family picture which may be reproduced in 
 the memory of my readers, and I trust that 
 
THE DINNER HOUR. 8$ 
 
 its general traits are so familiar to them that 
 I shall not have done violence to the modesty 
 of my hosts by taking their homes for illus- 
 trations. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Hudson in Winter, — Snow Pictures. — 
 Castles and Ruins. — The River Towns. — 
 Story of Andre'. — Legend of Sleepy 
 Hollow. — The Grave of Irving. 
 
 IT was a bright frosty morning when Fanny 
 and I left Irvington — upward bound along 
 the eastern bank of the Hudson. More snow 
 had fallen during the night covering the 
 sleigh tracks on the road, and now the fresh 
 north-west gale set the storm again in motion 
 from the ground, whirling the snow in fan- 
 tastic wreaths and shaking it down in huge 
 flakes from the overladen firs. It was some- 
 what blinding to the eyes and cutting to the 
 cheeks, it is true, but one is always-willing to 
 pay a fee for a view of a fine picture, and this 
 trifling inconvenience was but a small tribute 
 to Nature for the exhibition of her wonderful 
 panorama of field and woodland, hills and dis- 
 tant mountains, with the broad intervening 
 
 86 
 
CASTLES AND RUINS. 87 
 
 river, whose surface, like everything far and 
 near, was covered with a mantle that sparkled 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 It has been often said with truth that all 
 that is needed by our river to make it as 
 picturesque as the Rhine or the Rhone, is his- 
 tory and its accompaniments. We have now the 
 green banks, the widened lakes, the narrow 
 channels, palisades, and highlands, as beauti- 
 ful and as romantic as theirs ; but they tell us 
 that we have no such castles and ruins. Still 
 we are making the attempt to equal them. 
 Greystone, for instance, represents a castle with 
 some effect. It has not the merit of ugliness 
 certainly, but from its commanding height it 
 is quite as desirable a structure to the eye as 
 if it had more of fancied architectural merit and 
 had been built a thousand years ago. We are 
 trying our 'prentice hand at ruins, too. Our 
 great landscape painter, Bierstadt, has offered 
 an unwilling contribution to such scenic effect. 
 A few miles above Greystone, perched upon a 
 high hill on the opposite side of the road, stood 
 his stately mansion. The fire has been more 
 powerful than his brush. It has made a picture 
 that can be seen for miles around, of lone 
 chimneys and blackened walls, such as the 
 
88 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 American tourist would hail with rapture if he 
 should get a glimpse of them from a steamboat 
 on the Rhine. 
 
 Time will perhaps bring us our share of 
 ruins, and then the Hudson will meet the 
 approbation of the antiquary and the tourist ; 
 but the lover of nature cannot reverse the 
 engine of progress and turn the wheels of the 
 ages back to the past. He can never see the 
 Hudson again as he may see the Columbia 
 now, rolling down through its forests, its 
 silence broken only by the thunder, the storm, 
 and the screams of wild fowl and beasts. 
 
 Nor is it certain that the future has anything 
 in store to replace this charming picture of the 
 past. There are not likely to be any enduring 
 ruins. Every stone of a dismantled building 
 will be utilized by our practical descendants for 
 a new house, for a railroad, or a garden wall, 
 and the Hudson will never be more beautiful 
 and attractive than it is to-day. 
 
 These river towns are all much alike, sloping 
 down from the Broadway road to the water- 
 side with the same gradations, country-seats 
 of the rich from the city, comfortable homes 
 of the " well-to-do " residents, stores and 
 shops, rookeries, saloons, and coal-yards, which 
 
RIVER TOWNS. 89 
 
 border on the railroad and the river. Thus, 
 society is defined by the grade of the land, and 
 the two extremes would be antagonistic did 
 not the happy medium preserve the balance. 
 
 In the olden time most of the population 
 was located by the docks for commercial con- 
 venience, the dwellers upon the stage-road 
 above subsisting on what they gained as 
 hangers-on around the tavern and the stables. 
 Most of those old caravansaries have long ago 
 been demolished or put to other uses. The 
 Vincent House, however, still holds its own 
 on the turnpike at Tarrytown, modernized 
 somewhat, but yet affording entertainment for 
 man and beast. 
 
 When 1 stop, as I sometimes do, and enter 
 its bar-room with motive undisguised, I meet 
 the faces of men whom I have known for years, 
 fixtures there — men who know everything, 
 because their fathers and grandfathers knew 
 everything, and told it to them, about Revolu- 
 tionary times. They do not agree in their 
 knowledge, but that is a matter of small ac- 
 count. " Them fellers that captured Andre," 
 said one of them, " were part of a gang of 
 Skinners. You needn't talk ; shut up. I've 
 heard my gran'ther tell all about it, and don't 
 
9<D WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 you s'pose he knew ? Andre he didn't have 
 money enough about him. That was what 
 was the matter ; and they cal'lated, they did, 
 that Gen. Washington's cash was better than 
 the Britisher's promises." 
 
 " Well, hain't I heard my gran'ther talk about 
 it, too?" responded another resident of the 
 bar-room. " He knowed 'em, he did, individ- 
 ooally, and he said that if Andre's stirrups, 
 saddle, horse, and all had been made of solid 
 gold, and he'd offered it to 'em, they wouldn't 
 have looked at it no more than they would at a 
 copper cent." 
 
 " I've hearn' tell," chimed in a little old man, 
 " that the trouble with Andre was that he was 
 out o' rum, and they wanted him to treat, and 
 he couldn't. 'Tell you, if he had a got off it 
 would a been a lesson for him in future — never 
 git out o' rum. Ef his flask had not gin out, 
 he could have said : ' Come, boys, let's set down 
 here on the bank, take a drink, and talk over 
 things good-natured.' There would^not have 
 been no occasion for pulling off his boots." 
 
 This suggestion was new to me, but the pro- 
 pounder was not, perhaps, far out of the way 
 in his general idea that a little more tact 
 would have saved Andre. Dr. Coutant, an 
 
CAPTURE OF ANDRE. 9 1 
 
 intelligent physician of the town, who has 
 gathered a fund of information pertaining to 
 the early history of Westchester County, does 
 not credit the captors with any patriotic 
 motive. 
 
 There is documentary evidence, made 
 public by the Rev. Daniel W. Teller ten years 
 ago, which settles the question absolutely, and 
 displays the conduct of the three " patriots," 
 in a worse light than it had ever been viewed 
 before. The gravest accusation that previ- 
 ously had been made against them was that 
 before they knew anything more of their 
 prisoner than that he was a British officer, 
 they had expressed their willingness to release 
 him if he could offer them a sufficient induce- 
 ment in money ; but it now appears that after 
 having discovered the compromising papers in 
 his boot, they agreed upon a sum of 500 or 
 1000 guineas as his ransom, and that the 
 negotiation failed simply because they could 
 not obtain satisfactory security that it would 
 be paid. Gen. Washington was not aware of 
 all that had transpired between Andre and 
 his captors when he made his first report, in 
 which he says : — 
 
 " A combination of extraordinary circum- 
 
92 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 stances and unaccountable deprivation of mind 
 in a man of the first abilities, and the virtue of 
 three militia men, threw the Adjutant General 
 of the British forces (with full proof of 
 Arnold's intention) into our hands ; and but 
 for the egregious folly or the bewildered con- 
 ception of Lieut.-Col. Jamison who seemed 
 lost in astonishment and not to have known 
 what he was doing, I should have gotten 
 Arnold." 
 
 The militia men took Andre to Jamison, 
 and Jamison, who seems never to have been 
 suspected of complicity in the treason, 
 although that is the only rational way of ac- 
 counting for his conduct, despatched Andre 
 with a guard to Arnold himself, sending him 
 a letter detailing the circumstances of the 
 capture, but transmitting the compromising 
 papers to Washington who was upon his route 
 from New England. 
 
 Maj. Talmadge soon afterwards arrived at 
 Jamison's quarters and having convinced his 
 superior officer of his stupidity, started in pur- 
 suit and brought Andre back, but strangely 
 permitted the messenger to proceed with 
 the letter. The result was that Arnold 
 effected his escape, and on the second day 
 
GENERAL KING'S LETTER. 93 
 
 after Andre's arrest he was brought to the 
 quarters of a young lieutenant of the Second 
 Regiment of Light Dragoons, under Col. Shel- 
 don. Lieut. King, at that time scarcely of 
 age, appears to have conducted himself with 
 remarkable discretion and to have shown his 
 good breeding as a gentleman. He after- 
 wards became a general, and served with 
 honor through the war. 
 
 " In the year 18 17," says Mr. Teller, writing 
 in 1877, " Gen. King was written to by a friend 
 who desired to know the exact facts in relation 
 to Maj. Andre's capture, etc. The following 
 letter was written by Gen. King in reply, and, 
 although previously solicited for publication, 
 is now for the first time given to the public": 
 
 RlDGEFlELD, June 17, 18 17. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Yours of the 9th is before me. 
 The facts, so far as I am acquainted with 
 them, I will state to the best of my ability or 
 recollection. Paulding, Williams, and Van 
 Wort I never saw before or since that event. 
 I know nothing about them. The time and 
 the place where they stopped Maj. Andre" 
 seems to justify the character you have drawn 
 of them. The truth is, to the imprudence of 
 the man and not the patriotism of any one is 
 
94 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to be ascribed the capture of Maj. Andre. I 
 was the first and only officer who had charge 
 of him while at the headquarters of the Sec- 
 ond Regiment of Light Dragoons, which was 
 then at Esq. Gilbert's in South Salem. He 
 was brought up by an adjutant and four 
 men belonging to the Connecticut militia, 
 under the command of Lieut.-Col. Jamison, 
 from the lines near Tarrytown, a character 
 under the disguised name of John Anderson. 
 He looked somewhat like a reduced gentle- 
 man. His small clothes were nankin, with 
 long white top boots, in part, his undress mili- 
 tary suit. His coat purple, with gold lace, 
 worn somewhat threadbare, with a small- 
 brimmed, tarnished beaver on his head. He 
 wore his hair in a queue, with long, black 
 band, and his clothes somewhat dirty. In this 
 garb I took charge of him. After breakfast 
 my barber came in to dress me — after which I 
 requested him to undergo the same operation, 
 which he did. 
 
 When the ribbon was taken from his hair, 
 I observed it full of powder. This circum- 
 stance, with others that occurred, induced me 
 to believe I had no ordinary person in charge. 
 
 He requested permission to take the bed 
 while his shirt and small clothes could be 
 washed. I told him that was needless, for a 
 change was at his service, which he accepted. 
 
 We were close pent-up in a bed-room, with a 
 guard at the door and the window. There 
 
GENERAL KING'S LETTER. 
 
 95 
 
 was a spacious yard before the door which he 
 desired he might be permitted to walk in with 
 me. 
 
 I accordingly disposed of my guard in such 
 manner as to prevent an escape. While walk- 
 ing together, he observed, he must make a con- 
 fidant of somebody, and he knew not a more 
 proper person than myself, as I had appeared 
 to befriend a stranger in distress. After set- 
 tling the point between ourselves, he told me 
 who he was, and gave me a short account of 
 himself from the time he was taken at St. 
 Johns in 1775 to that time. He requested 
 pen and ink, and wrote immediately to Gen. 
 Washington, declaring who he was. About 
 midnight the express returned with orders 
 from Gen. Washington to Col. Sheldon to 
 send Maj. Andre immediately to headquarters. 
 
 I started with him, and before I got to 
 North Salem meeting-house met another ex- 
 press with a letter directed to the officer 
 who had Maj. Andre in charge, and which 
 letter directed a circuitous route to head- 
 quarters for fear of recapture, and gave an 
 account of Arnold's desertion, etc., with direc- 
 tions to forward the letter to Col. Sheldon. I 
 did so, and before I got to the end of my 
 journey I was joined by Capt. Hoodgers first, 
 and after by Maj. Talmadge and Capt. Rogers. 
 Having given you this clew, I proceed with 
 the Major's own story. He said he came up 
 the North River in the sloop of war Vulture, 
 
g6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 for the purpose of seeing a person by flag of 
 truce. That was not, however, accomplished. 
 Of course he had to come ashore in a skiff, and 
 after he had done his business, the wind was 
 so high, the Dutchman who took him ashore 
 dared not venture to return him on board. 
 The night following, the militia had lined the 
 shore, so that no attempt would be made with 
 safety. Consequently, he was furnished, after 
 changing his clothes, with a Continental horse 
 and Gen. Arnold's pass, and was to take a 
 route by Peekskill, Crumpound, Pinesbridge, 
 Sing Sing, Tarrytown, etc., to New York. 
 
 Nothing occurred to disturb him on his route 
 until he arrived at the last place, except at 
 Crumpound. He told me his hair stood erect 
 and his heart was in his mouth on meeting 
 Col. Samuel B. Webb of our army face to face. 
 An acquaintance of his said that Col. Stoddert 
 knew him, and he thought that he was gone, 
 but they kept moving along and soon passed 
 each other. He then thought himself past all 
 danger, and while ruminating on his good luck 
 and hair-breadth escapes he was assailed by 
 three bushmen near Tarrytown, who ordered 
 him to stand. He said to them : " I hope, 
 gentlemen, you belong to the lower party." 
 " We do," says one. " So do I," says he, " and 
 by the token of this ring and key you will let 
 me pass. I am a British officer on business of 
 importance, and must not be detained." One 
 
GENERAL KING'S LETTER. g? 
 
 of them took his watch from him and then 
 ordered him to dismount. 
 
 The moment that was done, he found he 
 was mistaken and he must shift his tone. He 
 says, " I am happy, gentlemen, to find I am 
 mistaken. You belong to the upper party 
 and so do I, and to convince you of it, here is 
 Gen. Arnold's pass," handing it to them. 
 "Damn Arnold's pass," said they. "You 
 said you were a British officer, where is your 
 money ? " " Gentlemen, I have none about 
 me," he replied. " You are a British officer, 
 with a gold watch and no money ! Let us 
 search him." They did so, but found none. 
 Says one : " He has his money in his boots ; 
 let's have them off and see." They took off 
 his boots, and there they found his papers, but 
 no money. Then they examined his saddle, 
 but found none. He said he saw they had 
 such a thirst for money, he would put them in 
 the way to get it if they would be directed by 
 him. He asked them to name their sum to 
 deliver him at Kingsbridge. They answered 
 him in this way: " If we deliver you at Kings- 
 bridge, we shall be sent to the sugar-house, 
 and you will save your money." He says : 
 " If you will not trust my honor, two of you 
 may stay with me and one shall go with the 
 letter I will write. Name your sum. The 
 sum was agreed upon, but I cannot recollect if 
 it was 500 or 1000 guineas, but the latter, I 
 think, was the sum. They held a consultation 
 7 
 
98 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 a considerable time, and finally they told him 
 if he wrote, a party would be sent out and 
 take them, and then they should all be prison- 
 ers. They said they had concluded to take 
 him to the commanding officer in the lines. 
 They did so and retained the watch until Gen. 
 Washington sent for them to Tappan, when 
 the watch was restored to Maj. Andre. 
 
 Thus, you see, had money been at command, 
 after the imprudent confession of Maj. Andre, 
 or any security given that the British would 
 have put confidence in, he might have passed 
 on to Sir Henry Clinton's headquarters with 
 all his papers and Arnold's pass into the bar- 
 gain. I do not recollect to have seen a true 
 statement of this business in any history that 
 has fallen into my hands. 
 
 There is something infinitely touching in 
 the relations of these two young officers. The 
 heart of the Lieutenant was warmed with pity 
 and sympathy for his captive, and no one can 
 doubt from this recital and from what after- 
 wards transpired, that if honor had permitted 
 he would gladly have set him free. On the 
 other hand, the British officer, fully appreciat- 
 ing this sentiment and knowing that he was in 
 the keeping of a gentleman, gave no hint of a 
 readiness to purchase his liberty, as he had 
 
ANDRE AND HALE. 99 
 
 openly done when he was dealing with the 
 " bushmen." 
 
 The friendship thus begun under such pain- 
 ful circumstances grew stronger every day 
 until the end of the sad story. The American 
 Lieutenant accompanied the British Major to 
 headquarters, passed days and nights with him 
 in his prison chamber, walked with him to the 
 gallows, and stood by him when he said : " I 
 am reconciled to death, but not to the 
 mode. It will be but a momentary pang," 
 and then deliberately adjusted the rope to his 
 neck with his own hands. 
 
 Andre was a spy ; Nathan Hale was a spy. 
 
 It requires more patriotism to be a spy than 
 to serve in any other capacity in war. 
 
 Let England cherish the memory of her 
 hero ; let us cherish the memory of ours. 
 
 Notwithstanding the verdict of history, 
 which agrees with the declaration of Gen. 
 King that " to the imprudence of the man, 
 and not to the patriotism of any one, is to be 
 ascribed the capture of Major Andre," the 
 people of Tarrytown rightly determined that 
 the spot of the transaction should not be for- 
 gotten. They could not very well erect a 
 monument to chronicle the great event which 
 
IOO WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 saved our country from unspeakable disaster, 
 without symbolizing it by the actors, to what- 
 soever motive at heart they might ascribe their 
 conduct. 
 
 For many years there had been standing by 
 the roadside in private grounds an unpreten- 
 tious little pyramid with a commemorative in- 
 scription upon it. 
 
 This was replaced in 1880 by a column of 
 larger size, surmounted by a bronze statue 
 representing one of the bushmen, musket in 
 hand, in an attitude like that of the picket 
 guard in the well-known statuette by Rogers. 
 It is artistic in all respects excepting that the 
 fingers of the hand held back in caution, are 
 so very long that no one can fail to be struck 
 by the want of proportion in this small particu- 
 lar which detracts from the merit of the work 
 as a whole. If Dr. Coutant would climb up 
 by means of a ladder and amputate a few 
 inches from each of those preposterous fingers, 
 his surgical skill would commend, itself as 
 much as his antiquarian lore to our grati- 
 tude. 
 
 The topography of the country has some- 
 what changed since Irving made it the scene 
 
THE LEGEND OE SLEEPY HOLLOW. IOI 
 
 of " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." We are 
 told that 
 
 " In the centre of the road stood an enormous 
 tulip tree, which towered like a giant above all 
 the other trees of the neighborhood and 
 formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were 
 gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form 
 trunks of other trees, twisting down almost to 
 the earth and rising again into the air. It was 
 connected with the tragical story of the unfort- 
 unate Andre, who had been taken prisoner 
 hard by, and was universally known by the 
 name of Major Andre's tree. . . . About 200 
 yards from the tree a small brook crossed the 
 road and ran into a marshy and thickly 
 wooded glen known by the name of Wiley's 
 swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side 
 served for a bridge over this stream. On that 
 side of the road where the brook entered the 
 wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted 
 thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous 
 gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the 
 severest trial. It was at this identical spot 
 that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and, 
 under the covert of these chestnuts and pines 
 were the sturdy yeomen concealed who sur- 
 prised him. This has ever since been consid- 
 ered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feel- 
 ings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone 
 after dark. . . Just at this moment a plashy 
 tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sen- 
 
102 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 sitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of 
 the grove, on the margin of the brook, he be- 
 held something huge, misshapen, black, and 
 towering." 
 
 This brook no longer runs across the road, 
 but as the grade has been improved, it flows 
 through a culvert far beneath the present 
 level, and would scarcely be noticed by the 
 passing traveller. Here it was that old Gun- 
 powder took the bit in his teeth and pursued 
 his mad race side by side with the headless 
 horseman. They reached the road which 
 turns off to Sleepy Hollow, but " Gunpowder, 
 who seemed possessed with a demon, instead 
 of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and 
 plunged headlong down hill to the left." 
 
 The tulip tree has long since disappeared, 
 the thick woods have been cut down, and 
 the marsh has been drained. This down- 
 hill road has also been somewhat diverted 
 from its original line, but people who follow it 
 generally imagine that Sleepy Hollow is at its 
 base, and that the bridge crossing Pocantico 
 Creek is where the final catastrophe occurred. 
 But that is neither Sleepy Hollow nor the 
 bridge. The house of Hans Van Ripper, with 
 whom Ichabod boarded, was in Sleepy Hollow, 
 
THE OLD LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE. 103 
 
 higher up, on what is now the Bedford 
 road. 
 
 There, also, was the old log school-house, 
 since replaced by a building of more modern 
 architecture. An old lady of the neighborhood 
 perfectly remembers the original structure, 
 " the windows partly glazed and partly patched 
 with leaves of old copy-books." Farmer Van 
 Tassel must have lived at a considerable dis- 
 tance south of Sleepy Hollow, as the peda- 
 gogue had found it necessary to borrow a horse 
 for the occasion of the party. Old Van Ripper 
 was well paid for the loan, for he made himself 
 and Gunpowder immortal among the rest. 
 
 Thus we can trace nearly all the localities of 
 the tale and yet agree with the cautious Mr. 
 Knickerbocker in his comments upon it : " Still 
 he thought the story a little on the extrava- 
 gant ; there were one or two points on which he 
 had his doubts." The old bridge, now taken 
 away, was further up the stream, and the road 
 has been somewhat changed accordingly. 
 Therefore the headless horseman is no longer 
 seen. He probably rode down to the brink 
 one dark night, and, unaware of the removal, 
 plunged into the stream, and rider and horse 
 were drowned. 
 
104 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Fanny trotted as quietly over the new bridge 
 as if none of these wonderful events had tran- 
 spired a century ago. 
 
 A few rods beyond is the old church — not 
 whitewashed now, but showing the gray color 
 of the rock of which it is built. There are 
 signs of some outward renovation, which do 
 not detract materially from the appearance of 
 age, and the little pepper-box belfry still con- 
 tains the original bell, imported, with many of 
 the inside fixtures, from Holland. On a tablet 
 above the door we read, " Erected by Frederick 
 Phillips and Catharine Van Cortlandt, his wife, 
 1699." It stands as an outpost on the southern 
 wall of a great city of the dead, where its 
 founders with successive generations of their 
 tenants repose, and where later generations lie 
 side by side with them, people who came to 
 possess themselves of their land when living, 
 against their will and protest, but who share it 
 with them now in peace. The little bell called 
 the first settlers together to worship God in the 
 ritual and language of their mother church. 
 Afterward the old Dutch liturgy was abandoned 
 for more modern doctrines expressed in English. 
 At last, for all practical purposes, there is no 
 more service of any kind, excepting during 
 
GRAVE OF IRVING. 1 05 
 
 the month of August, when the Antiquarian 
 Society, whose property the building has be- 
 come, open it for preaching, rather for purposes 
 of curiosity than for devotion. 
 
 In this cemetery is the grave of Irving. 
 When I visited it a few years ago and stood 
 by the simple white slab on which is inscribed 
 his name and the date of his birth and death, 
 and saw that it was evidently new, I asked the 
 keeper if it could be possible that all this time 
 should have gone by with nothing to designate 
 the spot. " Oh, no, indeed ; " he replied, " a 
 stone was put up almost immediately, but the 
 curiosity-hunters chipped it to pieces, and this 
 has taken its place. They will probably serve 
 it in the same way and then there will be 
 another." 
 
 And yet let us not too hastily accuse them 
 of desecrating his grave. The stone was not 
 broken down and strewed around with mali- 
 cious intent. Each little bit may have been 
 carried away with thoughtlessness, but with 
 pious motive, and wherever it is, it may be 
 cherished as a token sacred to his memory. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Along the Tappaan Zee. — The Pathfinder s Home. 
 — The Old Van Cortlandt Manor-House. — 
 Up the Croton. — Two Views of the New 
 Dam. — Revolutionary Memories. — Canaan- 
 ites of the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 The old Albany Turnpike, as it is still some- 
 times called beyond Tarrytown, where I do 
 not remember having seen any more sign- 
 boards indicating that it is Broadway, is true 
 to its name for the intervening six miles be- 
 fore we reach Sing Sing, the country residence 
 of New York ex-Aldermen and ex-financiers 
 in general. They are there, solving the prob- 
 lem of capital and labor by equalization with 
 the horny-handed sons of toil who erstwhile 
 worked with revolvers, bowie-knives, and bur- 
 glars' tools. 
 
 The road is all " up hill and down dale," 
 passing over eminences that command some 
 of the finest views of the Hudson where it 
 
 106 
 
1 ' THE PA THFINDER. " I QJ 
 
 spreads itself out into the wide Tappaan Zee, 
 forming a picturesque lake at the base of 
 the opposite mountains. Notwithstanding the 
 eligibility of the many commanding sites, 
 fine mansions do not abound. It is somewhat 
 too far from the great business mart for men 
 to go to town every morning and return every 
 afternoon. If the river be followed still 
 further to the Highlands, where the scenery is 
 most impressive, or to Poughkeepsie and 
 even beyond, where it is still beautiful if not 
 so wild, it will be found bordered at greater 
 intervals either by mansions of retired gentry 
 who go to spend the last years of their lives 
 in the country, or by villas for merely summer 
 occupation. 
 
 On this bit of turnpike stands a fine house 
 once owned and occupied by a man now re- 
 tired from public notice, but who in his day 
 was one of the foremost characters of the 
 country. " The Pathfinder" he was called in 
 his youth, when, full of enthusiasm and love 
 for adventure, he traversed the prairie deserts, 
 discovered the Great Salt Lake beyond the 
 Rocky Mountains, and led his band of avant 
 couriers over the Sierras Nevadas down the 
 slope to the Pacific shore. He was the first 
 
IOS WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to unfurl the national flag in California, and to 
 aid in founding a new empire in the West. 
 
 There he gained wealth and the honor 
 which made him the Free-soil candidate for 
 the Presidency. In the war of the Rebel- 
 lion he was the pioneer of freedom, the first to 
 declare, before he was justified by the progress 
 of events, that the war was a struggle for the 
 liberty of the slave. Here on the Hudson, in 
 a paradise of forest and shrubbery, he estab- 
 lished his home. Here he and " our Jessie," 
 as the people delighted to call her, a woman 
 whose attractions and commanding presence 
 entitled her to the leadership of society in 
 Washington, made their happy and luxurious 
 dwelling-place, dispensing elegant hospitality, 
 and surrounding themselves with the best and 
 the most cultured of the land. Then misfort- 
 une came upon them. The great Mariposa 
 grant of thousands of acres, exceeding duke- 
 doms of the Old World, was wrenched from 
 their hands, their lovely home was "sacrificed 
 and became the property of others, and they 
 were almost thrown upon the charities of the 
 world. 
 
 But are republics ungrateful ? O, no, Fre- 
 mont was rewarded in his old age for all that 
 
VAN CORTLANDT MANOR-HOUSE. IO9 
 
 he had done for the nation. They made him 
 Governor of Arizona, with a salary large enough 
 for a small politician, and they went to live and 
 to be buried alive in those hot and desert 
 lands. Strange contrast this from their 
 shaded lawns on the Hudson! They soon 
 came back to the East, and are now— who 
 knows where ? — ending their days in obscurity 
 and neglect. Thus passes the glory of the 
 world. New heroes have come upon the stage 
 and gone, and the Pathfinder, too, is dead, al- 
 though he still lives. 
 
 Soon after passing through the village of 
 Sing Sing, the post-road makes a sudden turn 
 to the left, and spans the Croton River with a 
 substantial bridge near its mouth. On the op- 
 posite bank stands the time-honored Van Cort- 
 landt manor house, one of the most interest- 
 ing relics of ancient days. 
 
 It was built by Stephanus Van Cortlandt, 
 the first "lord of the manor," in 1681, the 
 date as chronicled on the door-post at the 
 entrance. It was evidently intended origi- 
 nally rather for a fortress than for a dwelling- 
 house, the loopholes for musketry used against 
 the Indians which indicate this, being still in 
 such condition for defence that I have some- 
 
IIO WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 times wondered that the present lady of the 
 manor does not bring them into use to ward 
 off the many strangers whose curiosity attracts 
 them to the spot. But that is not the dispo- 
 sition of the amiable and courtly hostess who 
 has so often entertained me and others at her 
 hospitable board. Proud she is, and well may 
 be, of the history of her late husband's ances- 
 try, of the portraits of the Van Cortlandts, 
 from the first Stephanus down to the present, 
 of their trophies and memorials, of the origi- 
 nal charter from the crown, of wonderful 
 curios of plate and crockery, of the old home 
 itself, solidly built of bricks said to have been 
 brought from Holland, of its wainscoted 
 walls, huge fireplaces, venerable chairs, and 
 the dark mahogany table, around which an- 
 cient Dutchmen first made merry, and the 
 great generals of the Revolution afterwards 
 did justice to its cheer when Col. Philip Van 
 Cortlandt was the master of the house. 
 
 He himself was one of the bravest of the 
 brave, a man without fear and without re- 
 proach. His own incorruptibility led him to 
 suspect Benedict Arnold long before his trea- 
 son, and in his journal he alludes in terms by 
 no means complimentary to him as appropriat- 
 
THE VAN CORTLANDTS. Ill 
 
 ing the property of the Government to his 
 own use. Familiar is the story of the attempt 
 to bribe Ethan Allen, and of his reply to the 
 offer of a large tract of land from the King. 
 " It reminds me of the promise of the devil, 
 on one occasion, to give away all the kingdoms 
 
 of the earth, when the d d rascal didn't 
 
 own a foot of the ground." So, in the begin- 
 ning of the war, according to the family chron- 
 icle, Gov. Tryon came up to Croton, and, in- 
 ducing Van Cortlandt to walk with him to the 
 top of the highest hill on his estate, promised 
 him all the land in sight, and a title besides, 
 if he would adhere to the royal cause. Tryon 
 received, if possible, a more indignant reply, 
 and hastily embarked upon his sloop to return 
 
 to New York. 
 
 The old burgomaster, Oloff Stephense, the 
 head of the family, has had no occasion to be 
 ashamed of any of his posterity. He was the 
 original settler, having landed in New Amster- 
 dam in 1638. A thrifty old Dutchman he was, 
 who instantly began to acquire property. 
 But Stephanus, his first-born on this conti- 
 nent, was still more adventurous. He bought 
 immense tracts of land from the Indians, and 
 the colony soon afterwards coming under 
 
I I 2 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 British rule, he consolidated all his territory 
 and obtained the royal charter, still carefully 
 preserved, which created him the first lord 
 of the manor. The area of his possessions 
 extended from the Croton River twenty miles 
 north, and from the Hudson east to the Con- 
 necticut line. 
 
 Mr. Henry George would have looked upon 
 the ownership of so much land by one man as 
 a heinous offence. According to his theory, 
 the Indians, who had previously held it in 
 common, must have been a happy and pros- 
 perous set of men. Nor would he have stopped 
 to consider what was sure to be the distribu- 
 tion of it. Children were born, and children's 
 children's inheritances divided and dismem- 
 bered it, until to-day the possessor of the 
 manor-house holds but 2000 acres, all the rest 
 having gone into the hands of strangers. For 
 one or two generations real and personal prop- 
 erty may remain in a family, and then all is 
 scattered, perhaps to be heaped up -again by 
 some one at the bottom who exchanges places 
 with those who were at the top. Our philos- 
 opher would have it all equalized at once and 
 kept forever on an equality. This scheme 
 will be successful when the tides cease to ebb 
 
DISTINGUISHED GUESTS. 113 
 
 and flow, and when Nature, convinced of her 
 error, throws down the Rocky Mountains and 
 the Sierras to convert the ground into building- 
 lots and farms. 
 
 Mrs. Van Cortlandt, who is withal a lady of 
 rare literary ability, is at present compiling a 
 work which will be of great interest not only 
 to the various branches of the family, but to 
 the public in connection with their history. 
 The participation of Westchester County in 
 the events of the Revolutionary war will find 
 a prominent place. On one of the proof-sheets 
 we were permitted to see, we read an extract 
 from a letter written by Pierre van Cortlandt, 
 November 13, 1775, to his son, the Colonel: 
 "Thursday night were here to supper and 
 breakfast of Col. Hammond's regiment about 
 three hundred men. They said they drank two 
 hogsheads of cider." And doubtless there was a 
 store of Madeira in the cellar for more distin- 
 guished guests. It is added, " Franklin tarried 
 here on his way back from Canada in 1776. 
 Here, too, came Lafayette, Rochambeau, and 
 the Duke de Lauzun." Washington was here 
 many times while the army lay on the shores 
 of the Hudson and along the heights of the 
 Croton. In more peaceful days the great 
 
114 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Whitefield had preached, standing on the broad 
 veranda, to spell-bound crowds on the lawn, 
 who had been summoned from miles around 
 by horsemen sent out by Van Cortlandt. 
 
 All this pageant passed before me in a 
 vision of the past, and then it was speedily 
 dispelled as the shrill whistle of a passing 
 locomotive echoed over the now quiet lone- 
 liness of the scene. Then, bidding adieu to 
 the lady of the manor, I descended the steps 
 over which the spurs of Revolutionary heroes 
 had clanked more than a century ago, and 
 mounted my horse from the block where they 
 were accustomed to take their "stirrup-cup" 
 to the health of their entertainers. 
 
 Turning off from the Hudson at this point, 
 we now began to follow the Croton towards 
 its source. The little river was " dark as win- 
 ter in its flow," for the boulders covered with 
 snow and with shining icy jewels made the 
 water black by their contrast, and the recent 
 freshet, which had not subsided, was playing 
 wild music along the foamy channel. For 
 miles, until we reached the lake beyond the 
 present reservoir, the stream sparkled and 
 danced in the sunlight of its winter glory. 
 
CRO TON RESER VOIR. I I 5 
 
 But the end must come to everything, and 
 although 
 
 " Rivers to the ocean run, 
 Nor stay in all their course," 
 
 the Croton will be one of the exceptions. Its 
 happy days will soon pass away, and it will 
 settle down to dull repose as a motionless lake. 
 " A stagnant pond it will be," said Mr. Orlando 
 Potter, whom I met in my travels. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Potter," I said, "you have 
 fought till the end against the scheme, but its 
 advocates have triumphed over you." "Yes," 
 he replied, " but they have to contend against 
 the Almighty now. First, they have to sink 
 for a foundation no feet to a porous bed-rock 
 that may let all the water out as fast as it 
 runs in, and then the dam is to be 177 feet 
 above the ground level, the water to flow back 
 more than eight miles, and to spread itself 
 from one to two miles up into the valleys. 
 What a reservoir that will be for a little river 
 like this to fill ! What with the leakage and 
 the evaporation, it cannot be kept full in hot 
 weather. There will then be a slimy border 
 of decomposed vegetation, breeding malaria 
 around the country, and the putrid water will 
 
1 1 6 WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 also breed pestilence in the city. If the job is 
 ever completed, $20,000,000 will not cover the 
 cost. But that is the least consideration in 
 this terrible blunder." 
 
 Such was the opinion, and I doubt not the 
 sincere opinion, of the defeated general of the 
 pessimists. On the other hand, a triumphant 
 optimist who, by the bye, would get rid of a 
 large tract of land, worth from $50 to $100 
 per acre for farming purposes, at a valuation of 
 $300, pitched his jubilate in the highest key. 
 " What a grand idea it was ! " he exclaimed. 
 " Now the city can spread itself indefinitely. 
 Ten million people will have all the water they 
 want, and then what a thing of beauty, what a 
 joy forever, this lovely sheet of water will be! 
 Ten miles long, indenting the shore with 
 charming little bays where the tall shadows of 
 the hills and trees will reflect themselves as in 
 the mirror lake of the Yosemite ; boulevards 
 all around this great expanse, country seats 
 with lawns sloping to the banks and—" 
 
 "But," I asked, interrupting him, " how 
 about the drainage from these houses?" 
 " Oh," he replied, " that is the easiest thing in 
 the world to arrange. Great mains with pipes 
 to cross the brooks can be laid along the 
 
ANDRE'S ROUTE. U/ 
 
 shores, and not a particle of pollution can enter 
 the lake, as it will all be carried down below 
 
 the dam." 
 
 Such are the differences of opinion which 
 may be decided at some future day when the 
 younger readers of these pages are gray- 
 headed. 
 
 Turning from the river at Pine's Bridge, a 
 locality made famous by the passage of Andre, 
 we follow the road to Bedford. It is certain 
 that Andre crossed this bridge. Nothing else 
 pertaining to his exciting ride is more sure. 
 That he landed at Verplanck's Point, and was 
 afterwards captured at Tarrytown, is not more 
 so, but he appears to have had so little topo- 
 graphical knowledge, and was naturally^ so 
 confused, that, in his narrative to Lieut. King, 
 he could not give an exact account of his jour- 
 ney. Historians have since duly lined it out 
 and have given him a great many parallel roads 
 to travel upon. If you ask any old farmer in 
 Verplanck's, Peekskill, Shrub Oak, or York- 
 town, about it, he will say that he has "hear'n 
 tell that Andree passed directly by his house." 
 It is at all events undeniable that he could not 
 have reached Tarrytown without crossing this 
 bridge unless he forded the river. 
 
Il8 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 The people hereabouts are " champion 
 liars " as to the events of the Revolution. 
 This propensity of theirs has been serviceable 
 in giving Fenimore Cooper many hints, which 
 he has judiciously woven into a thread of 
 fiction, more resembling truth than the alleged 
 truths themselves. It was from a citizen of 
 Bedford that he heard of one Enoch Crosby, 
 who had the reputation of having been an 
 American spy. Crosby grew into Harvey 
 Birch, and Harvey Birch became a reality. 
 
 War began at an early day on the borders 
 of New York and Connecticut, long before 
 the Revolutionary struggle in which the bat- 
 tles of White Plains and Ridgefield were 
 fought. The Dutch and the English enter- 
 tained the same views of the Indian question 
 that are prevalent among their descendants. 
 The latter gave for the land all along Long 
 Island Sound, extending sixteen miles inland, 
 twelve coats, twelve hoes, twelve hatchets, 
 twelve glasses, twelve knives, two kettles, and 
 five fathoms of wampum. There was a treaty 
 " reserving the liberty of hunting and fishing 
 for the Indians." 
 
 But our ancestors came to loggerheads with 
 the Indians on the " fishery question," as we 
 
INDIA N MASS A CRE. 1 1 9 
 
 are now embroiled with the Canadians. They, 
 too, passed measures of retaliation, not paper 
 measures, like those of Congress, but measures 
 of powder and ball, such as our down-East 
 smack owners would like to have the nation 
 pass on their account against Canada. The re- 
 sult of the fight in 1644 was very satisfactory. 
 One hundred and thirty troops, most of them 
 Dutch, under Capt. John Underhill, exter- 
 minated 700 " savages," first setting their vil- 
 lage on fire and then driving men, women, and 
 children back into the flames. It is mentioned 
 by the historian as a proof of the incorrigible 
 obstinacy of these people that they perished 
 without uttering a single cry. But, like the 
 Israelites of old, the Dutch considered that 
 God was present on the occasion to help them, 
 for " the Lord collected most of our enemies 
 there to celebrate some peculiar festival." 
 
 There is now a Quaker meeting-house hard 
 by the spot of that inhuman massacre. This 
 peaceful sect came here too late for the poor 
 Indians. There was no William Penn among 
 those cruel Dutch to stay their hand, and to 
 inculcate the policy of peace by which he ob- 
 tained his conquests, and which gave to Penn- 
 sylvania the true title-deeds for her lands, 
 
120 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 while those of New York and New England 
 were written in blood. 
 
 The Indians having been exterminated, the 
 white men who became possessors of the soil 
 occupied it by right of might, as the Jews oc- 
 cupied Canaan after the destruction of the 
 Amorites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and 
 other similar savages who had been smitten by 
 " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." 
 Then their own turn likewise came to be mas- 
 sacred or carried into captivity — and they 
 thought it hard. So the people of Bedford 
 failed to appreciate the retribution which, we 
 are told by the highest authority, descends 
 upon later generations for the sins of their 
 fathers, when, in 1779, Tarleton swooped down 
 upon them and burned their town. The 
 neighborhood was the scene of many skir- 
 mishes during the Revolutionary war, and in 
 most of them the patriots, though far exceed- 
 ing the British in numbers, were defeated, not 
 so much because of their cowardice 'as for want 
 of arms and discipline. But what Bedford 
 lacked in military skill it compensated the 
 country for in giving birth to the greatest dip- 
 lomat of the time. In that capacity John 
 
A FRIEAWLY WELCOME. 121 
 
 Jay was of more account than regiments of 
 soldiers or parks of artillery. 
 
 Night was closing in upon us again. Fanny 
 and I on a roundabout road had already ac- 
 complished thirty miles. Ten miles beyond, 
 over the Connecticut line, lay the village of 
 Ridgefield to which we hastened on. Again 
 from another domestic hearth the cheerful 
 wood fire gleamed, and again I was welcomed 
 to the house of my old schoolmate and friend. 
 
 " I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd, 
 How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude ; 
 Yet grant me still a friend in my retreat 
 Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet. 
 
 " Hast thou a friend ? Thou hast indeed 
 A rich and large supply ; 
 Treasure to serve your every need, 
 Well managed, till you die." 
 
 Yes, it is very pleasant to have " a rich and 
 large supply" of friends along the road. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Neiv York as a Summer Residence. — The 
 Country in Winter. — The Old Boston Post- 
 Road. — On the Way again to Ridge fie Id. 
 
 The thermometer is not always an indicator 
 of temperature. That depends quite as much 
 upon the quantity of moisture in the atmos- 
 phere as upon conditions that are frequently 
 only apparent. In the high altitudes of the 
 West we are less uncomfortable in our shirt- 
 sleeves with the mercury at zero than we find 
 ourselves in New York when wrapped in flan- 
 nels and ulsters, the glass showing -thirty de- 
 grees. 
 
 Another atmospheric peculiarity we cannot 
 fail to notice. Directly upon the seashore the 
 climate, whether the thermometer corresponds 
 or not, is milder than it is ten or a dozen 
 
 122 
 
CHANGE OF AIR. \2$ 
 
 miles inland. Thus, as Brighton and Hastings 
 afford relief from the bitter winter winds of 
 London, so Atlantic City and Long Branch 
 have become refuges from New York, and the 
 value of Coney Island in this respect will ere 
 long be appreciated. 
 
 Undoubtedly people become acclimated to 
 New York, and find its temperature, as well 
 as everything else that really makes it attrac- 
 tive, the best in the world. But these are 
 they who never go away from their home, and 
 who consequently never experience any incon- 
 venience in returning to it. Perhaps, after 
 all, they are more contented than vagrants 
 who wander all over the world in search of 
 happiness because they fancy that on Man- 
 hattan, where it could easiest be attained, the 
 air does not agree with them. Nevertheless, it 
 must be admitted that there is at least " a 
 change of air" experienced by going either to 
 the seashore or to the country in winter as well 
 as in summer. Indeed, if I were compelled to 
 divide the time by seasons between city and 
 country, I would unhesitatingly give the 
 summer to the former and the winter to the 
 latter. 
 
124 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 I would like to be a millionaire so that I 
 could buy up and pull down the old rookeries 
 which were once the chosen abodes of New 
 York merchants, on State Street, but are now 
 converted into immigrant boarding-houses and 
 tenements, and build dwelling houses in their 
 stead. I fancy that it would be a good 
 investment. What more can a quietly dis- 
 posed family desire than a house comfort- 
 able at all seasons, one which in the summer 
 looks out on the green lawns and trees about 
 Castle Garden, where the sultry winds of July 
 and August are tempered and refrigerated by 
 their passage over the salt waters of the bay 
 and the rivers? There, perhaps, at no very 
 distant day, residents of the New York that is 
 to be above the Harlem will find their summer 
 homes, when Trinity Church shall stand alone 
 in its rural cemetery and the fragments of 
 Wall Street may come into use for fencing the 
 lawns sloping to the river banks and the 
 market-gardens along the sides of "Broadway. 
 There will then be no question of getting out 
 of New York. New York will get out of itself. 
 The Harlem River will be its southern boun- 
 dary, and it will stretch away to the north, 
 with the new Croton Lake, ten miles long and 
 
A WINTER MORNING. 1 25 
 
 three miles wide, for its centre, and its upper 
 limit will be somewhere near where I am now 
 writing, on the shores of Lake Mohegan. 
 
 I look upon it this lovely February morning 
 from my window, its surface covered with a 
 sparkling field of new-fallen snow, the pines 
 and firs surrounding it bending under the white 
 plumage so beautifully contrasting with their 
 green, the oaks and maples with frosted barks 
 and silver icicles glittering in the sunlight. 
 This is winter, glorious winter. It quickens 
 the pulse of age and brings back the memories 
 of youth, the jingling bells, the rosy cheeks, the 
 ringing laughter of the sleigh-ride of the olden 
 time, the music of the gliding skates — all the 
 wholesome, life-giving exercise in its pure, 
 bracing air ; and still to me it is more joyous 
 than the gentle zephyrs and balmy airs, green 
 landscapes and tropical verdure of the South, 
 that boasts of its sunny clime, but where 
 never sun shone with a splendor like this of 
 to-day. 
 
 The story of " The Pioneers" opens with 
 a charming winter scene, depicted with the 
 graphic pencil of nature that Cooper always 
 held in his hand. The keen atmosphere makes 
 our blood tingle, and we luxuriate before the 
 
126 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 blazing logs in imagination as if we had partic- 
 ipated in their warmth. The winds are as cold 
 now on the banks of the Otsego, but the music 
 of the bells is not so merry, for fashion has 
 decreed a noiseless gliding over the snow, and 
 the cheerful fireside has given place to abom- 
 inable stoves, furnaces, and steam-heaters. 
 
 In the early days of our history, winter 
 sports were more appreciated because there 
 was so little sport of any kind. The business 
 of life was serious. The minds of our fathers 
 were occupied mainly with the questions how 
 should they get a living in this life by works, 
 and how by faith they should make sure of a 
 life to come. Since their day, the struggle for 
 existence has become less arduous. Wealth, 
 bringing luxury, has poured in upon their de- 
 scendants ; the rough edges of religion have 
 been smoothed off; and shocking as the idea 
 would have been to their ancestors, men have 
 determined to get out of it all the enjoyment 
 which the world can afford. Some of the 
 morning newspapers find space for reports of 
 sermons on Monday, but on every other day 
 of the week their columns are filled with the 
 particulars of horse and yacht races, base-ball 
 and foot-ball games. These, for the most part, 
 
WINTER SPOR TS. 1 2 7 
 
 are summer sports, but now is the season for 
 " carnivals," ice-boating, skating, sleigh-riding, 
 and tobogganing, the most healthy and invig- 
 orating of them all. Perhaps, by and by, as 
 autumn excursions on horseback have lately 
 become popular, the same delightful exercise 
 may be taken in winter, the season of all 
 seasons which I have found from oft-repeated 
 experience to be for it the most enjoyable. 
 
 It is now 1888. We parted company a year 
 ago at Ridgefield, Conn., and if you please we 
 will start again from there. Fanny and I have 
 since that time borne each other's burdens. 
 She has carried me often over many roads, and 
 I have paid her stable bills. Her appearance 
 still denotes content, and she never gives me 
 any cause of complaint, excepting that on the 
 approach of a railroad engine she manifests 
 fear, and turns about, trotting away from it 
 till its noise subsides. 
 
 It is a female characteristic to be afraid of 
 something. A steam engine is as objectionable 
 to a mare as a cow or a mouse is to a woman. 
 We should make due allowance for this imper- 
 fection in the house or in the stable. If 
 Fanny could speak, she would doubtless find 
 some weak point in my character. I am glad 
 
128 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 that she cannot. We do not like to be told of 
 our faults. 
 
 As I am unable to persuade any human 
 friend to accompany me on my long rides, 
 our companionship becomes closer. Fanny 
 knows the pocket in which I keep the lumps 
 of sugar. When she gets one of these little 
 dainties, she acknowledges it by a cordial 
 shake of hoof and hand. She knows perfectly 
 well whether we are about to take a long or a 
 short journey, for in the first case I always 
 show her the small roll of baggage before it is 
 buckled upon the saddle. So she adapts her 
 gait to the requirements of the trip. We talk 
 together along the road — that is to say, I talk 
 to her and she listens. Many people think 
 this is the best way to carry on a conversation. 
 It is not uncommon, and it always affords 
 pleasure to one person at least. By this 
 means the rider may place himself en rapport 
 with his horse. There is no exact English for 
 this French term. It means a great deal — not 
 precisely that a man is any part of a horse, or 
 that a horse is any part of a man, but that the 
 man for the time being is equine, and the 
 horse is human in his feelings. 
 
 To the saying of Terence that because he 
 
SOUND BELIEF. 129 
 
 was a man nothing human could be foreign to 
 him, I would add that for the same reason 
 nothing about a horse can be foreign to me. 
 I believe that a horse has a soul. The Bible 
 tells us that there are horses in heaven, and 
 that they came down from thence to take up 
 Elijah. I think that even bad men get to 
 heaven at last, and there is no reason why 
 horses, who are better than they are, should 
 not get there before them. Several years ago 
 this question of the immortality of animals 
 was discussed in the columns of the New York 
 Evening Post. It was shown that many men 
 of very sound minds believed in it — prophets 
 and apostles of old, like Isaiah and John the 
 Revelator ; later theologians, like Martin 
 Luther, and scientists like Cuvier and Agas- 
 siz. 
 
 It matters not how we found ourselves at 
 Ridgefield again, so far as the description of 
 the road is concerned. The town is easy of 
 access by the old Boston Post-road through 
 White Plains and Bedford, fifty-three miles 
 from New York. Fanny and I have often 
 travelled over it, and I have called to her at- 
 tention the few remaining mile-stones and the 
 tumble-down aspect of old farm-houses long 
 9 
 
130 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 since deserted. I might have asked her, and 
 obtained an answer as satisfactory as I can get 
 from others or from myself, how it is that the 
 farmers hereabouts and the farmers of New 
 York State and New England manage to live. 
 
 When these large houses were occupied, 
 their inhabitants did live by raising produce for 
 the city markets before railroads were known. 
 
 According to the theory of the protection- 
 ists, they should live better now by supplying 
 the factory establishments which have been 
 built up in their neighborhood. But stubborn 
 facts may disprove any economic theory. The 
 farmer's occupation for everything but the 
 sale of milk is gone. The articles that he once 
 sold he is obliged now to buy. Even his hay 
 sometimes comes from the West. His land is 
 not worth the half of its price of fifty years 
 ago ; and yet, although he acts in direct op- 
 position to the scheme of Senator Frye, who 
 counsels us to sell everything and buy nothing 
 if we desire to be successful, he- does live 
 as he did not live in the olden time, when he 
 and his family wore homespun dresses, when 
 he worked, his wife worked, his sons and 
 daughters worked, and when he had nothing 
 but hard-wood furniture and rag carpets. 
 
THE BENEFICENT TARIFF. 13 1 
 
 Now, his boys, if they have not " gone into 
 business," drive fast horses, his girls wear seal- 
 skin sacks and silk dresses, make music with 
 the piano instead of with milk pans and butter 
 churns, and they all live in a new nicely-fur- 
 nished house and have plenty of money. 
 How is that Fanny ? Fanny shook her head, 
 by which I understood that, with all her horse 
 sense, she could not fathom it. " I can't see," 
 
 I continued, " how the farmer can be so pros- 
 perous when he not only sells nothing, but 
 buys everything, and that at a high price, in 
 order to support home industries, which give 
 him nothing in return. I think I'll ask the 
 philosopher of the Tribune" Fanny tossed 
 her head. I did not exactly understand if this 
 was in token of approbation or contempt ; but 
 when I added, " He will probably attribute it 
 to the beneficent tariff," she snorted outright. 
 I saw that she was thinking of oats, and won- 
 dering how, if the price should be advanced 
 from forty-three to sixty cents per bushel, 
 either she or I would be benefited. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Ridge field to Danbury. — The Burning of the 
 Town in 1777.— The Battle and Other Revo- 
 lutionary Incidents. 
 
 The mercury stood at six degrees above 
 zero in the morning at Ridgefield. It had 
 rained on the previous day, and now the sun 
 shone as it shines here through a foliage and 
 over a landscape of glittering silver. In- 
 doors the prospect was as satisfactory as it 
 was charming without. The cheerful fire in 
 the breakfast-room, the aroma of the coffee, 
 the juicy steak, the frequent relays of buck- 
 wheat cakes that came upon the table hot 
 from the griddle, and the mug of hard cider 
 which always goes with a genuine country 
 breakfast — above all, the society of my hos- 
 pitable entertainers — were strong inducements 
 for delay. But the vis inertia? of the after 
 breakfast easy-chair was at length overcome, 
 and wrapping my stirrups with straw, pulling 
 
 132 
 
THE ROAD TO DANBURY. 133 
 
 the blanket back over my legs in the manner 
 heretofore described, and drawing my cap 
 down over my ears, I was ready to start on 
 the road to Danbury. 
 
 It was over many hills which the rain of the 
 previous day, now become ice and covering 
 the snow, had adapted to the purpose of 
 toboggan sliding rather than to that of rid- 
 ing, unless horseshoes are exceptionally well 
 sharpened. Under these circumstances the 
 rider who supposes himself very careful is 
 apt to walk his horse slowly over the ground, 
 especially when descending hills. That is an 
 easily demonstrated mistake, for a little re- 
 flection must convince him that the animal 
 should be put to a hard gallop so that the 
 shoe corks may strike heavily and effectively 
 into the ice. The necessity for doing this 
 caused the distance of ten miles to be over- 
 come in little more than an hour, and that 
 was the end of the day's journey, for before 
 our arrival the clouds had gathered and the 
 snow had begun to drive in our faces after the 
 manner, though in a milder degree, of a Mon- 
 tana blizzard. 
 
 It was a harder road to travel for the Brit- 
 ish troops in years ago. From Mr. Bailey, 
 
134 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 the witty editor of the Danbury News, who 
 can be serious occasionally, and who in one of 
 his serious moods has done good service in 
 writing some interesting historical sketches, I 
 obtained more information than I can com- 
 press into this chapter, pertaining to the events 
 of the Revolutionary war. 
 
 To go back to the time when Danbury was 
 a mere protoplasm, existing under the Indian 
 name of Pahquioque, it was bought from the 
 natives and honestly paid for in trinkets, blan- 
 kets, and rum by some adventurous Yankees 
 who had found their way from the New Eng- 
 land coast first to the valley of the Connecti- 
 cut, and thence had come as near as they 
 dared to approach to their former enemies, the 
 Dutchmen, here establishing an outpost in 
 1684. They underwent the usual experiences 
 of border warfare, being often alarmed by 
 the demonstrations of the Indians, but never 
 having any serious conflicts, perhaps because 
 they were always in a condition of defence. 
 
 But a small area of the Connecticut valley 
 was then occupied, and it is therefore difficult 
 to imagine any motive but that of Puritan 
 aggressiveness that could lead them to insti- 
 tute a war against nature in this rugged coun- 
 
DA NB UR Y IN DANGER. \ 3 5 
 
 try when the rich and easily explored river 
 valley lay open before them, a hundred miles 
 to the north and a hundred miles to the south. 
 The Puritans were like the Irishman who 
 always wants somebody to tread on the tail of 
 his coat, and like Mark Tapley who was 
 happy only when he was miserable. For mu- 
 tual protection this devoted band lived in 
 block-houses together, and from them they 
 went out four or five miles every day to cul- 
 tivate the best soil they could find. After 
 they had escaped all danger from the Indians, 
 there came the French war to disturb but not 
 to injure them. Their real suffering came at 
 last in the war of the Revolution, when nearly 
 the whole town was destroyed and the earn- 
 ings of a century were annihilated by the 
 flames in a single day. 
 
 In April, 1777, Gov. Tryon came from New 
 York with 2,000 men, and landing from their 
 boats at Fairfield, they marched to Danbury 
 for the purpose of destroying a considerable 
 quantity of Continental stores that had there 
 been collected. These were " guarded by a 
 few Continental troops without arms." So 
 the American story runs, and it is added that 
 on the approach of the British, they " with- 
 
I36 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 drew." It would not have been to their dis- 
 credit if the truth had been told that they ran 
 away, although it was to the discredit of 
 somebody that valuable property like this was 
 so totally unprotected. 
 
 The British entered the town on the night of 
 April 26, and immediately burned one house 
 with four persons in it, and on the next day 
 set the whole town on fire. They destroyed 
 about 5,000 barrels of salted provisions, 1,000 
 barrels of flour, 1,600 tents, and a quantity of 
 rum, wine, rice, etc. Besides these the esti- 
 mated private losses were over $80,000. 
 
 The American and British accounts of this 
 conflagration differ only in the use of adverbs. 
 The American report says: "The town was 
 wantonly burned." The British report says : 
 "The town was unavoidably burned." Thus 
 we see on what slender threads hangs the 
 truth of all history. For the credit of human- 
 ity it may be said in corroboration of Gov. 
 Tryon's story, that on their march through 
 Bethel, where there were no munitions of war, 
 private property was unmolested. 
 
 In Danbury almost the only buildings 
 spared were the Episcopal church and the tav- 
 ern. The former ov/ed its safety to the regard 
 
PRESENCE OF MIND. 1 37 
 
 of the pious Tryon for the established religion 
 of his country, and the latter to the presence 
 of mind of Mrs. Taylor, the landlady. When 
 the soldiers were about to apply the torch she 
 had a large batch of dough ready for the oven. 
 " Why, boys, " said the comely matron, placing 
 her arms akimbo, and looking smilingly in 
 their faces, " I was just going to bake some 
 nice biscuits. If you burn the house down, 
 you'll lose your breakfasts ; if you don't, you'll 
 see what good bread a Yankee woman can 
 make ; and I guess I can find some rum to go 
 with it. The old man has run away, but I've 
 got the key, and I'm no more afraid of you 
 than you are afraid of me. Sit down and 
 make yourselves comfortable till breakfast is 
 ready." The soldiers took her at her word. 
 She " kissed them all for their mothers," 
 they had a good breakfast, and went on their 
 way rejoicing. Taylor's tavern stood for 
 many years, a monument of the ready wit of 
 Taylor's wife. 
 
 The oven figures once more in the history 
 of Danbury. Eli Benedict and Stephen Jarvis 
 were the Tory pilots who led the enemy 
 into the town. They both " withdrew " to 
 Nova Scotia, to await the issue of the war. 
 
I38 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 If the British had been victorious, they might 
 have returned to become office-holders, but as 
 things turned out it was the part of discretion 
 to stay away. Benedict never came home, 
 but Jarvis, after many years, had an irrepres- 
 sible desire to visit his friends. He came to 
 them in disguise, but his presence in the town 
 was suspected. The mob came to the house 
 of his sister where he was imperfectly con- 
 cealed. Again a woman's fertility of resource 
 came into play. She pushed her brother into 
 the great brick oven, and piling him over with 
 kindling-wood, bade the intruders search the 
 house ; and they searched it in vain. 
 
 On the first appearance of the British, ex- 
 presses were sent to Gens. Arnold and Woos- 
 ter at New Haven. They arrived one day too 
 late for effective service. If they could in 
 season have collected even a few men, they 
 might have swept down on their enemies at 
 night, when they lay around the smoking 
 ruins of the town in the stupor of intoxication. 
 They arrived, however, on the next day, and 
 dividing their forces, Arnold pushed on ahead 
 over the road I had just travelled, to fortify 
 a pass against the enemy's approach, while 
 Wooster followed in their rear. 
 
THE AMERICANS DEFEA TED. 1 39 
 
 Without being a military critic, it appears 
 to me that Wooster was too precipitate. He 
 should have allowed the British to come up 
 against Arnold's defences, and thus brought 
 them between two fires. Instead of adopting 
 such cautious tactics, he pursued them impetu- 
 ously, so that, although they were not in a 
 fighting mood, but only anxious to secure 
 their retreat, they faced about and whipped 
 this detachment of the Continentals, mortally 
 wounding Gen. Wooster in the engagement. 
 
 Turning about again, they came up with 
 Gen. Arnold, whose small force was unable to 
 stop them unaided by the assistance that 
 Arnold had counted upon, although he and his 
 men resisted courageously till all hope was 
 lost. The British then made their way 
 through Ridgefield to their boats, harassed 
 but not seriously impeded by sharpshooters, 
 who peppered them as opportunity offered. 
 
 As usual, American and British accounts 
 differ enormously as to the number of killed 
 and wounded on their respective sides ; but 
 the desolation of Danbury bore witness to the 
 fact that the object of the raid had been 
 accomplished. Gen. Wooster was brought 
 back to one of the few houses remaining, and 
 
140 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 died there two or three days after the action. 
 The Congress at Philadelphia passed becoming 
 resolutions and appropriated a sum of money 
 for the erection of a monument to his mem- 
 ory. It is an almost incredible story that the 
 amount being handed over to the General's 
 son, who was authorized to exercise his own 
 taste and judgment, he diverted the appropri- 
 ation to his own uses, and left his father's 
 grave without even a stone to designate its 
 . locality. A later generation has been more 
 grateful to him than his unnatural offspring, 
 and now a handsome monument records the 
 heroic self-sacrifice of this intrepid officer. 
 
 It would have been better for the fame of 
 Arnold had he, too, met his death upon this 
 early battle-field. But he lived to display 
 again and again his reckless courage in subse- 
 quent contests for liberty. No one can doubt 
 that until his fatal step into the abyss of in- 
 famy he was actuated by the patriotism as 
 much as by the ambition of a soldier. It was 
 when the latter was disappointed that the 
 former was betrayed. Like Lucifer, he fell 
 from the stars, and as Lucifer's good deeds in 
 heaven from all eternity are not remembered 
 as a balance of account with his transgression, 
 
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. 141 
 
 so all that Benedict Arnold ever did for the 
 freedom of his country has been blotted out 
 by his futile attempt to accomplish its ruin. 
 
 I sat for hours that evening in his library 
 with the editor, who is an encyclopaedia of 
 historical knowledge, collating what I have 
 written from his store of facts and anecdotes. 
 As I was about to leave, he observed, " I am 
 afraid you will have a cold ride to-morrow, but 
 it is not as cold as it was Sunday morning. 
 See that water-color painting? Looks dam- 
 aged, don't it? Well, that happened Saturday 
 night because there was no fire in the furnace. 
 The water in the color froze." When I came 
 to know Danbury better on the next day, I 
 wondered why the paintings there were not 
 done in whiskey : but my suspicions were now 
 aroused by this remark of the jocular news- 
 paper chief, and I asked, "Mr. Bailey, is this 
 all true that you have been telling me?" 
 
 "True as Gospel," he replied, solemnly. 
 «Do you believe the Gospel?" I inquired. 
 " In the main," responded the editor. " Well, 
 then," I answered, "I'll believe this in the 
 main, for I know there was a Revolutionary 
 war and I think it quite likely there was a fire 
 in Danbury, possibly about that time. Good 
 
142 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 night. Many thanks." " Good night, call 
 again," and I was out in the street wading 
 through the snow to the Wooster House, 
 where I turned into a comfortable bed and 
 dreamed of British invaders mingled with 
 American patriots, and while there was a blaze 
 of fire all around, we were sitting in Mrs. Tay- 
 lor's kitchen watching her as she baked hot 
 rolls for us, the British Generals Agnew and 
 Erskine, with Wooster and Arnold, drinking 
 healths to each and the other in Jamaica rum. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Iconoclasts of Danbury and of Boston. — Hat 
 Industry. — Storms on Sea and Land. — Ride 
 to Mohegan. — Ice-Cutting and " Microbats " 
 by the Way. 
 
 On the next morning there was a driving 
 snow-storm, but in this compact town it was 
 not difficult to get about the streets. Some 
 one pointed out the old church, which, as has 
 been narrated, the British spared from regard 
 to its religious denomination. They were 
 more generous than the posterity of its occu- 
 pants, who might have been supposed to have 
 had sufficient veneration for it to maintain it 
 in repair, and to perpetuate it for its original 
 purposes. Instead of doing so they have sold 
 it with less compunction and excuse than Esau 
 had in disposing of his birthright. They were 
 more hungry for show than he was for pottage, 
 and so, as the building was not adapted to 
 modern religious style, they sold it to be 
 
 H3 
 
144 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 moved away and to be occupied as a tenement 
 house. 
 
 " I wish," said the late Harvey D. Parker, 
 the proprietor of the hotel in Boston that bears 
 his name, " they'd pull down that old King's 
 Chapel opposite. Such kind of buildings ain't 
 no use in these times." And then he turned 
 around and viewed complacently the composite 
 architecture of his feeding and lodging es- 
 tablishment. No one knows how long the 
 venerable structure will be spared. Even in 
 aesthetic Boston its continued existence is but 
 a question of short time. Brattle Street 
 church fell at the demand of fashion, and al- 
 though the Old South was rescued by private 
 subscription from the destruction to which its 
 walls had been doomed by greed and religious 
 ambition aided by legal chicanery, it has been 
 robbed of its sacred character and has become 
 a museum of curiosities, while its former oc- 
 cupants have taken the many times thirty 
 pieces of silver for which it was sold, and 
 which it had gained by more than two cen- 
 turies of freedom from taxation, and built 
 what they call "a magnificent church edifice," 
 where it will be of benefit to the real estate 
 
THE HA T INDUSTR Y. 145 
 
 that they own. The people of Danbury are 
 not more iconoclastic than the Bostonians. 
 
 Mr. Hull, a merchant of the town, kindly 
 piloted me into one of the large hat factories, 
 where some idea might be obtained of the pre- 
 vailing local industry. In this one alone 300 
 men and women are employed. Altogether, 
 out of a population of 18,000, 3,500 men and 
 1,500 women are engaged in the various proc- 
 esses of making hats, in the twenty-four fac- 
 tories. They earn large wages, but the busi- 
 ness is not regular and steady. In the latter 
 part of the winter, and in early spring, " times 
 are lively " in meeting the demand for summer 
 fashions, and at the close of summer and the 
 commencement of autumn the workmen are 
 called upon to prepare for the requirements of 
 winter. Six months' work in the year is 
 about all that can be counted on. Although 
 in " slack times " there is a scattering for a 
 while into the country, and into the city of 
 New York, there is necessarily a great deal of 
 lamentable idleness. But there are always 
 bright days for the rumsellers. They " toil 
 not, neither do they spin." Others have done 
 that for them, and they live much better than 
 
 lilies of the field. In some of the streets al- 
 io 
 
146 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 most every other house is a " saloon." In 
 White Street, about 300 yards long, there are 
 thirty-two of them. These are mostly patron- 
 ized by the foreigners. 
 
 In former times the hat-makers were all 
 Americans, and as machinery had not been in- 
 troduced to any extent, they found an abun- 
 dance of work. Even now, when less than half 
 are Americans, the country boys and girls 
 earn substantial wages, which, to the disgust 
 of the saloon-owners, they keep for them- 
 selves. Near the factories are rows of sheds. 
 Early in the morning caravans of wagons or 
 sleighs may be seen coming into town, each 
 vehicle carrying, besides its passengers, a 
 bundle of hay. They drive to the sheds, 
 where the animals are left to feed till evening, 
 the boys and girls taking their dinner-pails 
 along to their places of work. The days are 
 long, for " piece-work " is indifferent to eight- 
 hour rules. The busy employes reserve only 
 light enough to find their way home, and 
 at twilight they take up their line of march. 
 
 It seems to me that honest, industrious per- 
 sons like these should have some very fixed 
 and correct ideas upon " the protection of 
 American labor." It may be supposed that 
 
" PROTECTION OF AMERICAN LABOR." I47 
 
 they would look askance on the introduction 
 of so much machinery, although they know it 
 is unavoidable, and now that they see half of 
 the remaining work, the whole of which was 
 once their own, being done by imported labor- 
 ers, they should ask themselves, " What is 
 the meaning of the hackneyed phrase? Is pro- 
 tection of machinery and of foreigners a pro- 
 tection of American labor, or is it the protection 
 of men who employ machinery, Americans, 
 foreigners, horses, mules, as they can best em- 
 ploy anything and everything for their greatest 
 advantage ? " 
 
 Hats of all kinds have been made at Dan- 
 bury. Just now, as the Derby hat is almost 
 universally worn, the stock and machinery are 
 adapted to its manufacture. If the "stove- 
 pipe " ever again gets the ascendency, new 
 methods will doubtless be devised. On enter- 
 ing the factory we were shown first the ma- 
 terial out of which the hats are made. This 
 is mostly rabbit fur, and singularly the article 
 is chiefly imported, the greater part of the sup- 
 ply coming from Germany. One would sup- 
 pose the rabbit industry to be indigenous, and 
 whatever protection sheep wool might require, 
 rabbit wool would need none. But the duty 
 
148 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 on hatters ' furs of twenty per cent, is often 
 escaped by importing the free skins and strip- 
 ping them here. I wonder if the Australians, 
 know anything about Danbury and Derby 
 hats ? Rabbits are overrunning their country 
 and devouring their substance. Why not trap 
 a few millions of them, kill them, and send 
 their skins to Danbury? 
 
 First we were shown cases of boxes, in each 
 division of which from 2^ to 4 ounces of fur 
 had been carefuly weighed out according to 
 the weight of the hats intended to be made. 
 
 This is soaked and steamed in rooms of a 
 temperature like that of a Russian bath, until 
 it becomes pulp. Then it is spread with al- 
 most transparent thinness over a cone three 
 feet high and a foot in diameter. Next it is 
 shrunk and partially dried. By and by, after 
 being dyed, it comes down to the size of an or- 
 dinary hat when it is blocked. Now it would 
 answer for a " wide awake," but it must be stif- 
 fened with gum shellac and the edges curled. 
 Thus far all this heavy and dirty labor has 
 been done by men, each one having his piece- 
 work. At this stage it is turned over to the 
 deft manipulation of the women, who bind, 
 stitch, line, and pack. Then the carpenter 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 149 
 
 comes and nails up the cases, and the hats are 
 ready for shipment. I have enumerated only 
 a few of the more than twenty processes of 
 hat-making, each of which is the piece-work of 
 separate individuals — all " parts of one stu- 
 pendous whole." I don't know if that phrase 
 is exactly applicable to a man's hat. It cer- 
 tainly is to that of a woman as regarded be- 
 tween ourselves and the foot-lights. 
 
 The relations between the factory-owners 
 and their employes just now are amicable, but 
 as among the great European Powers, war is 
 not unlikely to break out at any moment. 
 The workmen are masters of the situation. 
 They know, as well as their employers know, to 
 a penny what it costs to make a hat and what 
 price hats command in the market. It is not 
 the employer who fixes the wages of the em- 
 ployed, but it is the employed who figures out 
 exactly how much the employer shall be per- 
 mitted to make. The* employes are all union 
 men, and they will not allow a single non-un- 
 ionist to work, nor will they permit any boy 
 under seventeen, or man over twenty-one years 
 of age to learn the trade. At present they are 
 earning from three to five dollars per day, ac- 
 cording to their capacity. That gives the 
 
I 5 O WIN TER SKE TCHES. 
 
 men who employ them a fair margin of profit. 
 If the market should advance, the workmen 
 will doubtless demand more, and if it should 
 recede, I think they are sensible enough to be 
 willing to take less rather than be idle. Dan- 
 bury appears to have solved the great question 
 of capital and labor. 
 
 Every old sailor knows that a southeasterly 
 gale is most likely to expend its fury and to be 
 succeeded by a brisk nor'wester either at eight 
 o'clock in the evening, at midnight, or at noon. 
 When coming on to the coast, appearances are 
 closely watched at these hours. If there 
 should be a sudden lull, then is the time with- 
 out a moment's delay to haul up the courses 
 and to stand by the braces. In an instant the 
 head sails are taken aback, and a lively crew 
 will swing around the after yards. The main- 
 topsail fills, and as the ship's head pays off, the 
 head yards in their turn are swung, and the 
 ship lies close to the wind, which comes rush- 
 ing back from the cold north-west. " 
 
 When this change occurs at noon, there can- 
 not be anything more grand and beautiful than 
 the scene. The clouds of snow or rain that had 
 been driving everything before them in their 
 fury, are driven back upon themselves and 
 
A NOR' WESTER, I 5 I 
 
 piled together over the eastern horizon by the 
 young giant that has come out of the north 
 scattering them with the breath of his nostrils. 
 Every moment, his fury increases. After the 
 southeaster has succumbed, its waves for a 
 time keep up the uneven contest until the 
 nor'wester brings into action the waves that 
 he has created, and which increase under his 
 lash. These strike the old seas and topple 
 them up on end, sending the spray of the com- 
 bat high in the air, little rainbows playing 
 through their crests. At last the old leaden 
 colored seas subside and the blue waters roll on 
 in their beauty and majesty. The ship that 
 had been tossed about in the conflict, opposing 
 surges meeting and tumbling in upon her 
 decks, is now snugly hove to, riding the billows 
 like an albatross, and sailors, disappointed as 
 they may be at the loss of their fair wind, are 
 never so insensible that they cannot enjoy the 
 magnificence of this great picture of sky and 
 sea. 
 
 There is nothing comparable to it on the 
 land. There are the same clouds, storms, and 
 sunshine, the same poetry of motion overhead, 
 but no motion of the stolid mountains that 
 stand still in their everlasting ranges, fixed 
 
I 5 2 WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 there by the Power that gives to the mountain 
 waves their ceaseless moving energy of life. 
 And yet, if we cannot have the sea all the 
 time, let us be grateful for what the land affords 
 that is beautiful, if not so grand. The snow 
 cannot lie and sparkle on the breast of the 
 ocean, and there are no silver forests there — no, 
 nor sleigh-bells, toboggan-slides, and skating- 
 ponds, but, taking it all in all, leaving the 
 waves out of the account, could there be any- 
 thing more superb than the breaking of the 
 storm that day at Danbury ? 
 
 True to its propensity, this came about 
 precisely at noon, and the north-west wind 
 succeeded. As Fanny and I left the town at 
 one o'clock, the sleigh tracks were covered with 
 a dry powdered snow, which here and there 
 was whirled up against the fences, arching itself 
 over them in drifts and festoons. Everything 
 looked so white, so pure, so clean, as if there 
 could never be a thaw, when the roads would 
 become dirty brown, then black bate ground, 
 the barn-yards reservoirs of filth, the fences 
 naked and wet, and there would be "water, 
 water everywhere." I did not think of that at 
 the time. 
 
 There are many persons who would not have 
 
FANNY. I 5 3 
 
 enjoyed the present surroundings so much — the 
 same sort of people who in health are always 
 on the lookout for sickness, and who seem to be 
 afraid to live because at some time or another 
 they will die. There is where a horse generally 
 has the advantage over a man. Horses probably 
 have no idea of death. It might be a satisfaction 
 to car horses if they had, but I do not think it 
 would be a pleasant thought for Fanny. She 
 gets her oats regularly, and, though the time 
 may come when the oats are musty or are not, 
 she doesn't trouble herself with anticipating 
 evil. Let us all try to imitate her. She was 
 in remarkably good spirits to-day. Facing the 
 wind, the steam from her nostrils blowing back 
 upon her face, she was a pretty and unique 
 picture, with her bay body and legs and her 
 silver-gray head. Sometimes a little stray 
 forgotten snow-cloud would come travelling 
 back from the west on its airy journey to over- 
 take the storm that had left it behind. And 
 then for a while we were all white till the wind 
 had blown off the flakes. So cheerily we made 
 our way along through Brewster's and Carmel 
 until we came to Lake Mahopac. 
 
 Sad was the appearance of its great summer 
 hotels, with their closed shutters and barricaded 
 
I 5 4 WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 doors, huge snowdrifts piled upon the piazzas, 
 the abandoned photograph shanties, and the 
 boat-houses with their signs still displayed, 
 " Boats to let " — boats to let, with ice eighteen 
 inches thick, and a thickness of eighteen inches 
 of snow over the ice. 
 
 But there was no lack of activity on the lake. 
 Gangs of men were busily employed in filling 
 the two great ice-houses, which hold 60,000 
 tons. Canals, nearly a quarter of a mile long, 
 had been cut out into deep water so that the 
 purest ice might be obtained. The great cakes 
 were pushed along by men until they reached 
 the shore, when a sort of steam tread-mill ap- 
 paratus seized them and jerked them up to a 
 high platform, from whence they slid down to 
 lie side by side or one above the other in a 
 compact mass until they were wanted for re- 
 frigerators, fever hospitals, ice-creams, mint 
 juleps, and the thousand uses to which ice is 
 put in summer, the most common and the 
 worst of which is that of ruining the digestion 
 of persons who drink ice-water with their meals. 
 
 There was not always such a craze for ice- 
 water in this country. It has not yet invaded 
 Europe. Doubtless it was to Mr. Breslin one 
 of the most objectionable practices of the 
 
"MICROBATS." 155 
 
 London hotels that they do not serve goblets 
 of this pernicious drink to their guests. I 
 remember reading in an old magazine — I think 
 of about 1802 — an account of the tubing from 
 a very cold spring near the "city prison" in 
 New York, and it was mentioned as an especial 
 advantage for those who lived at a considerable 
 distance, that as the water had so far to run in 
 the logs, " it lost somewhat of its coldness as 
 when first taken from the spring." 
 
 I stopped to talk with a man who appeared 
 to be directing some others at the lake, and 
 congratulated him on the successful harvest of 
 the crop. "'Jes' so, jes' so," he said. "Well, 
 yes, it will be a big thing this year — our folks 
 can get any price they want." 
 
 " How is that?" I asked. 
 
 " Why, on account of them microbats in the 
 North River ice. It's all pizen, and nobody 
 will use it. Ours hasn't got any of 'em in it." 
 
 " Well, what's the matter with the North 
 River ice ? " 
 
 " Microbats, didn't I tell you ! You get a 
 microscope and examine a drop of that water: 
 there's ten million microbats in it, and every 
 one of 'em is a snake. They lay so clost to- 
 gether that they keep 'emselves warm, and 
 
156 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 don't freeze when the water freezes solid. 
 Then when the ice thaws out, there they be. 
 Folks that drink that kind of ice-water get 
 typhoid fever, malaria, measles, and small-pox, 
 to say nothin' of having live critters crawlin' 
 round inside of 'em." 
 
 " But how would they work in whiskey ? " I 
 suggested. " Wouldn't that kill them ? " 
 
 "Now, that's something I hadn't thought 
 of," replied the ice man. " Perhaps it might." 
 
 " Well, then," I replied, as I touched Fanny 
 lightly with the spur, " New Yorkers, on the 
 whole, may consider themselves safe." 
 
 Nine miles more to Mohegan, arriving at 
 our old quarters there at five o'clock. 
 
 ''Delightful ride, wasn't it, Fanny? I hope 
 you are not tired ?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Where are we going 
 next ? " 
 
 " I can't say just now. Here, take this lump 
 of sugar, give me your paw, and trot off to your 
 stable." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The West Side of the Hudson. — The Discov- 
 erers Dream. — Revolutionary Memories. — 
 On Andrews Track. — Over the Ice-Bridge. — 
 Fanny s Misgivings. 
 
 Frequently passing up and down the 
 eastern bank of the Hudson River, whether by 
 rail or over the highway, the steep Palisades 
 and the range of which they form a part, 
 stretching far north to the higher Kaaterskills 
 on the western side, in their varied dresses of 
 the seasons, changing from green to russet- 
 gray, and then to the silver of the frozen tor- 
 rents or the dazzling white of midwinter, are 
 ever-present pictures of scenery which famili- 
 arity cannot render tame or uninteresting. 
 They seem to have been built up to hide some- 
 thing beyond and to excite our imagination 
 with conjectures of what it may be. As Irving 
 looked upon them from the porch of Sunnyside, 
 he peopled them with the beings of his own 
 
 157 
 
1 5 8 WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 fancy, turning loose his hobgoblins to disport 
 themselves with a mortal who dared to trust 
 himself in their wild recesses. Familiar as he 
 was with that little strip of New York, which, 
 to look at it on the map, would seem to belong 
 of right to New England, and of which he 
 could speak with accuracy, as he did in his 
 " Legend of Sleepy Hollow," he was obliged to 
 confine himself to imagination in his descrip- 
 tion of the terra incognita that he dared not 
 to cross the river to survey. 
 
 There must have always been something 
 forbidding about that western shore, for when 
 Hendrik Hudson anchored in the river on the 
 nth of September, in the year 1609, he made 
 no attempt to land upon it, but pulled away to 
 an island on the other side, armed with a 
 demijohn of gin, with which he attacked and 
 subdued the natives, who, not having had any 
 name for the spot, called it Manhattan — the 
 place of drunkenness — in honor of the occa- 
 sion ; and the name is still appropriately re- 
 tained. In this first encounter with the abo- 
 rigines, the harder and more accustomed 
 head of the explorer stood him in good 
 stead, although his share of the fire-water 
 
THE DISCOVERER'S DREAM. I 59 
 
 may, perhaps, account for his prophetic dream 
 of the night. 
 
 The southern breeze had died away, 
 
 The ebbing tide to seaward ran ; 
 It was the twilight hour of day, 
 
 E'er night her starry reign began. 
 
 Hendrik had dropped his anchor there, 
 
 Beneath the bristling Palisade, 
 When sunset streamed its golden hair, 
 
 On Nature's face in slumber laid. 
 
 And as he paced the decks alone, 
 
 Fond memory brightened into hope ; 
 
 The past was his, and the unknown 
 Was in the future's horoscope. 
 
 He stopped, and gazing at the view, 
 Sat leaning o'er the galliot's side, 
 
 And saw the Indians' li^ht canoe 
 Dance o'er the sparkling starlit tide. 
 
 The music of the parted stream, 
 The wafted land-breeze vesper sigh, 
 
 Stole o'er his senses, and his dream 
 Encouraged by the lullaby 
 
1 6o WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 He thought he saw the small canoe 
 Grow big, and bigger — bigger yet, 
 
 Then changing into something new, 
 It was a sloop with mainsail set. 
 
 And then this white bird had her young, 
 They grew like her, and clustered 'round, 
 
 And " Yo heave ho " was cheerTy sung 
 As sloops were up and downward bound. 
 
 And still they grew, as Fashion's dames 
 Increase in flounce and furbelow; 
 
 Brigs, ships, and craft of various names 
 
 Float 'round the anchored Dutchman's bow, 
 
 'Twas nothing strange, he'd seen them oft, 
 Perhaps less jaunty, snug and trim ; 
 
 But then those flags he saw aloft, 
 
 Those stars and stripes, were new to him. 
 
 But now he sees, or thinks he sees, 
 
 A mill afloat, with water wheels 
 Revolving, coming near! His knees 
 
 Shake with the fear that o'er him steals. 
 
 It thunders on with furious blast ; 
 
 It is the devil's ship of fire ; 
 Like lightning sweeps the phantom past 
 
 On bickering wheels that never tire. 
 
THE PALISADES. l6l 
 
 Then underneath the lurid light 
 She leaves above her foamy track, 
 
 Upsprings to his astonished sight 
 A city on Manhattan's back. 
 
 'Tis pandemonium ! Demons scream 
 Through thousand whistles in his ear, 
 
 And fiends on iron horses seem 
 To shoot along their mad career ! 
 
 Through the still air, the midnight bell 
 
 Sent out the music of its stroke ; 
 The anchor watch sang out, " All's well," 
 
 And Hendrik from his dream awoke. 
 
 To-day the crests of the Palisades are 
 densely wooded as they were two hundred 
 and seventy-nine years ago, and it is not till 
 the traveller has progressed some twenty miles 
 to the north that, looking across, he sees scat- 
 tered houses, towns, and village cities that 
 have crept down and established themselves 
 on the waterside. People of the eastern shore 
 do not care to have any intercourse with them. 
 Before the Revolutionary war there was Dobbs 
 Ferry above Yonkers, and King's Ferry above 
 Sing Sing, but latterly there has been no cross- 
 11 
 
1 62 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 ing-place below West Point excepting between 
 Tarrytown and Nyack, and the ferry-boat 
 which did that service having been burned, it 
 has not been thought worth while to replace 
 her. 
 
 About the line between New York and New 
 Jersey over there, there are curious old Dutch 
 settlements, and there are Revolutionary leg- 
 ends of battles and of the rank treason hatched 
 upon their shores. I have always desired to 
 tread upon their ground. 
 
 An opportunity was offered by the building 
 of the great natural bridge which this year has 
 stretched across the Hudson from its source 
 far down to within fifteen miles of New York. 
 How well the Ice King does his architectural 
 work ! First he fringes the shores and spreads 
 his glassy outworks towards the channel; it 
 is a long time before they meet, but when 
 they touch and come together, the building 
 goes rapidly on, the substrata thicken inch by 
 inch until what seems to be the maximum of 
 two feet is gained. 
 
 In the last winter Fanny and I had gone 
 over the road travelled by the hapless Andre 
 from his landing on the eastern shore until he 
 was captured at Tarrytown, and his subsequent 
 
A COLD MORNING. 1 63 
 
 fortunes were traced as he was led from place 
 to place, a prisoner. I now proposed to avail 
 ourselves of the chance offered by the closing 
 of the river, to cross it as near as might be, in 
 an opposite direction, on the route of the old 
 ferry which served Andre's purpose, for it is 
 not true, as is generally supposed, that he was 
 brought over by a row-boat in the darkness, 
 being supplied with a horse after landing. 
 
 It was very cold on the morning of the 16th 
 of February. The mercury at eight o'clock 
 stood at five degrees below zero, but the air 
 was perfectly still, so that at ten, when the 
 glass indicated zero, the lack of wind aided by 
 the sun-warmth already appreciable in the 
 advance of the season, rendered riding not 
 only far from uncomfortable, but gave it a 
 zest and enjoyment not to be attained under 
 any other conditions. 
 
 Leaving Lake Mohegan we pursued our 
 noiseless way over the well-beaten sleigh 
 tracks, down through the village of Peekskill, 
 meeting here and there a muffled pedestrian. 
 Most of the people were occupied in the many 
 stove foundries which contribute to its princi- 
 pal industry. On a day like this they might 
 well make themselves comfortable about their 
 
164 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 stoves, and wish, for the success of their busi- 
 ness, that all the days of the year might be 
 like unto it. 
 
 I once asked a stove manufacturer why he 
 was a protectionist, and why he so cheerfully 
 submitted to a heavy duty on the iron that 
 he worked. " Oh, well," said the manufacturer, 
 whose house had just divided the year's profit 
 of $48,000, " we can stand it ; we get enough 
 out of the public, and so we can afford to let 
 the pig-iron men get something out of us." 
 I did not propose just now to leave Fanny out 
 in the cold while I went into his office to argue 
 the question with him. She might have stood 
 there till this time, and my friend would not 
 have satisfied me that any reduction of the 
 duty on pig-iron would infallibly reduce his 
 own profits and the wages of his men. 
 
 Verplanck's Point, where it projects into the 
 Hudson, is four miles below Peekskill, almost 
 directly opposite Stony Point upon the other 
 side. The British held these cdmmanding 
 positions, which gave them control of th e 
 river. Later in the war they were abandoned, 
 and the Americans extended their lines nomi- 
 nally to the vicinity of Tarrytown : although 
 the intervening ten or fifteen miles were at 
 
STONY POINT. 165 
 
 times included in that debatable terriority in- 
 fested by Cowboys and Skinners, and known 
 as the " neutral ground." 
 
 The fortress on Stony Point was captured 
 in July, 1779, by Gen. Wayne, with the aid 
 of the first " intelligent contraband " on rec- 
 ord. Old Pomp had supplied the British gar- 
 rison with strawberries, and in the routine of 
 his business he became possessed of the coun- 
 tersign. The primary attack of the Americans 
 was upon Pompey's cabin, where he was cap- 
 tured and subdued with little difficulty. At 
 first he refused to betray his customers, but 
 by dint of promises of many chickens and 
 threats of disabling his shins, he was induced 
 to lead the Continentals into the stronghold. 
 Wayne advanced by the side of Pompey at 
 the head of his troops under cover of darkness, 
 and after a hand-to-hand bayonet fight, with- 
 out firing a single gun, they subdued the 
 garrison and took 543 prisoners. In the end, 
 after being evacuated and again occupied by 
 the British, the forts on both sides of the river 
 were abandoned and dismantled, the King's 
 Ferry being continued between the points. 
 
 Fanny and I approached the river at the 
 spot in Verplanck's where Andre" landed under 
 
1 66 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 the guidance of Joshua Hett Smith, who fig- 
 ured conspicuously in the treason, and to 
 whose connection with it I shall give a prom- 
 inent place in this narrative, because his name 
 has not always been brought forward with 
 those of his principals. The river, frozen with 
 a thickness of nearly two feet, was still further 
 covered by a foot of snow. Far as the eye 
 could reach to the Highlands of the north, 
 and beyond the wide Tappaan Zee at the 
 South, it was all an unbroken prairie of white. 
 We might have crossed in the exact track 
 of Andre" and Smith to Stony Point, a dis- 
 tance of about a mile, but by taking a diag- 
 onal course of four miles to Haverstraw there 
 was a saving of time. To all appearance 
 a great field lay before us. Why should 
 Fanny suppose it to be anything else ? She 
 had never been there before. Why should 
 she know that beneath that fair covering of 
 snow there was a layer of ice, and that beneath 
 the ice there was water enough to drown a 
 thousand regiments of cavalry ? There was 
 not the slightest difference in the look of the 
 snow upon the river and upon the land over 
 which we came to it. Nevertheless, she was 
 so reluctant to follow the foot-tracks that I 
 
FAN NTS MISGIVINGS. 1 67 
 
 was obliged to dismount and give her a " stern 
 board." Even then, when once upon the river, 
 she trembled excessively, and looking into her 
 eye I could see the thought in her brain, and 
 knew that if she could speak she would say : 
 " I have every confidence in you, but I am a 
 female and you must make allowance for me. 
 You say the ice is two feet thick ; but I might 
 break in. Can't we go around by the bridge 
 at Albany or the ferry at New York? No? 
 ' Come on, Fanny, is it ? ' That's all well 
 enough for you. You say you will lead me 
 till I gain more confidence ; but these are 
 tracks of men. Horses weigh a great deal 
 more than men, and I don't see a single horse- 
 track on the snow ! " Caresses and sugar, 
 however, had some effect, but she stepped tim- 
 idly and gingerly along until we came to the 
 well marked sleigh-track. All at once her fears 
 vanished as she trod it with a firm step, and 
 permitting me to mount her, she loped over 
 the frozen river as if it had been a highway 
 upon the land. Animal instinct, was it ? No; 
 it was thought, reflection, calculation, like that 
 of a man, without his knowledge of safety — 
 nervousness, fear, distrust, like that of a 
 
1 68 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 woman, which refuses to be overcome by 
 reason. 
 
 So we went on confidently and satisfactorily 
 until suddenly there came one of those, to the 
 inexperienced, fearful ice-quakes, giving the 
 impression that our weight was cracking and 
 breaking down the great winter-bridge through 
 all its length and breadth, and that we were 
 about to sink into the depths below. The hills 
 on either side took up the echo, and poor 
 Fanny thought that her last moment had 
 come, and that she was about to expire in a 
 convulsion of nature. She stood still and 
 trembled from head to foot. Cold as it was, 
 the sweat broke out upon her, and with it the 
 hair on her skin literally stood on end. I 
 never so pitied a dumbthinking beast. Dis- 
 mounting, I put my arm around her neck, 
 drew her head down to my breast, patted her 
 face, and kissed her cheek, yes, I did, and I 
 walked by her side comforting her as best I 
 could for the rest of the way, as 'again and 
 again the fearful, though harmless, crashes re- 
 verberated from shore to shore. For her sake, 
 I was glad when we landed at Haverstraw. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The " Smith House" at Haver straw. — A Revo- 
 lutionary Copperhead. — The Landing from 
 the " Vulture." — Two Fateful Musket Shots. 
 — The Cider -Mill Engagement. — Smith's 
 Misadventure. 
 
 I HAD a letter of introduction to Mr. Lil- 
 burn, who, I had been told, had lived in the 
 " Smith house " for many years, and who now 
 resided in the new house that he had built 
 near by. We had crossed the river, landing 
 two miles below the place, but Fanny was so 
 overjoyed at being on terra firma again, that 
 she skipped nimbly over the road to find an 
 entertainment as agreeable to her in Mr. Lil- 
 burn's stable, as was provided for me at his 
 hospitable board. 
 
 The events of the Arnold treason are nar- 
 rated in books of history, and are often re- 
 peated in magazines and newspapers. Never- 
 
 169 
 
\yO WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 theless, there are items to be gathered on the 
 spot, brought down by tradition, seasoned per- 
 haps with romance, but having for their stock 
 the meat of truth. 
 
 After dinner, my obliging host accompanied 
 me to the historic house, where we were po- 
 litely received by Mr. and Mrs. Weiant, the 
 present occupants. It cannot be agreeable to 
 the privacy of family life to dwell in a " show 
 place." No one would care to live in Shaks- 
 pere's home, or at Mount Vernon, if they could 
 be had house-rent free. But these kind people 
 declare that they are not disturbed by their 
 frequent visitors, who are always made wel- 
 come to explore the premises. 
 
 The house was built 140 years ago. It is 
 one of those old-fashioned structures whose 
 builders studied architectural comfort rather 
 than architectural monstrosities of " kitty-cor- 
 nered " roofs, mediaeval turrets, and all sorts of 
 composite irregularities that are laid to the 
 charge of good Queen Anne. On each side of 
 the wide hall, with its ample staircase, are two 
 large square rooms, duplicated by similar 
 chambers overhead. The first chamber in the 
 south-east corner is the one where Arnold and 
 Andre" were closeted and where the plans of 
 
A REVOLUTIONARY COPPERHEAD. I J I 
 
 West Point were delivered. A part of the 
 original furniture is still there. A little secret 
 closet is pointed out where Andre was said to 
 have been concealed ; but this is one of the 
 absurd traditions which, I believe, Lossing has 
 adopted as authentic without reflection. 
 There can be no foundation for it whatever, as 
 there was no pretence of secrecy in his visit 
 to the house. 
 
 Mr. Smith was a gentleman of high social 
 standing and wealth, but his great mistake lay- 
 in his abortive attempt to sit comfortably on 
 two stools, which finally brought him ignomin- 
 iously to the floor. He was a sort of Revolu- 
 tionary Copperhead. As he intimates in his 
 little book, copies of which are very rare (but 
 one of them is in the possession of Mr. Lil- 
 burn), published in England and reprinted in 
 America after the war, he was a Tory. 
 
 In those days there were Tories of two 
 classes. The out-and-out Tory was one who 
 stood by the King through thick and thin, op- 
 posing the war as unjustifiable from the begin- 
 ning, and maintaining his allegiance squarely 
 by taking up arms in the cause of his sovereign. 
 The other was the man who acknowledged the 
 grievances of the colonies, but was opposed 
 
172 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to their separation from the mother country. 
 When England, alarmed at the negotiations 
 which resulted in the alliance with France, 
 manifested a willingness to accede to the 
 original demands of the colonies, the Tories of 
 this stamp supposed that all the objects of the 
 war might be accomplished, and therefore ob- 
 jected to its continuance for the sake of a dis- 
 tinct government, which they conceived would 
 be for the interest of military and political 
 agitators, among whom they classed Washing- 
 ton himself. 
 
 It may be added that there was still a third 
 class who, like the old woman whose husband 
 was fighting with the bear, " didn't care which 
 whipped," so that she was not disturbed. All 
 that they were anxious about was the safety of 
 their own lives and property. For the first 
 class we may well entertain a sincere respect. 
 Certainly our Republican friends, who consider 
 taxation for the benefit of the few to be an 
 advantage to the whole community," will agree 
 with them that it was a wicked thing for any- 
 body to war against the King of England be- 
 cause he endeavored to collect a small duty on 
 tea ; and all of us are willing to accord to sin- 
 
SMITHS CHARACTER. 1 73 
 
 cerity in error something of the credit due to 
 principle. 
 
 In his treatise, Mr. Joshua Hett Smith de- 
 clares that he was on the American side, al- 
 though he thought the war had gone far 
 enough, while facts show that he was not only 
 destitute of all patriotism, but was supremely 
 selfish, and what was infinitely worse, he con- 
 nived at the betrayal of his country. 
 
 To all indications, when the British lines 
 extended above Haverstraw, he was a loyal 
 subject of the king; but when his property 
 came within the American lines, he lavishly 
 extended his hospitalities to the Continental 
 officers. Arnold and Burr were frequently his 
 guests, and the latter left his name carved in 
 the marble of the dining-room mantelpiece, 
 where it is shown as one of the curiosities of 
 the house. 
 
 In his book, Smith complains that he was 
 not taken into Arnold's confidence, regretting 
 that he was therefore unable to defeat his 
 plans, while he unconsciously makes it evident 
 that he knew perfectly well the object of 
 Andre's visit, assisting in his disguise by lend- 
 ing him his own coat. It was this reluctant 
 exchange of his uniform which settled the 
 
174 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 British officer's doom as a spy, and Smith, 
 together with Arnold who proposed it, were 
 responsible for his fate. It is curious to no- 
 tice how the case was regarded by some jour- 
 nals in England. The (London) Political 
 Magazine of February, 1781, says of it: 
 " Washington has tried Smith for being in 
 what they call Arnold's conspiracy ; but the 
 trial has turned out a mere farce, for Smith 
 has not suffered any punishment. The people 
 in New York therefore believe that Smith be- 
 trayed Andre to the rebels, and are of opinion 
 that he never can clear up his character any- 
 where but at the gallows ! " Truly the way of 
 the transgressor is hard. If Washington could 
 have convicted him, he would have hanged 
 him, and if the editor of the Political Magazine 
 had gotten him in his power, he would have 
 had him hanged again. He escaped the first 
 execution before his trial was concluded, by 
 disguising himself in women's clothes and get- 
 ting down to New York, where fortunately for 
 him, Sir Henry Clinton did not take the edito- 
 rial view of his case. 
 
 The Vulture had anchored off Croton Point, 
 not far below Haverstraw, and Arnold at 
 Smith's house had furnished him with a flag of 
 
ANDR& AND ARNOLD. I 75 
 
 truce to communicate with her. It was rather 
 odd that a boat carrying such a flag should 
 have approached the ship with muffled oars by 
 night, and it is not surprising that the bearer 
 met with a rough reception from the officer of 
 the deck. It was with difficulty that he gained 
 admittance to Capt. Southerland's cabin, and 
 presented his credentials. Maj. Andre, under 
 the name of John Anderson, then accompanied 
 him to the shore, where they landed just below 
 Haverstraw, and found Arnold concealed in 
 the bushes, while a servant was in charge of 
 two horses. Here was the first conference, in 
 which Smith complains that he was not al- 
 lowed to participate. It was prolonged till 
 daylight when, the tide not serving for An- 
 dre's return to the ship, he and Arnold mount- 
 ed the horses and rode through the town to 
 Smith's house, while the latter pulled around 
 with the boat's crew to an upper landing, with 
 the intention of rowing Andre down to the 
 Vulture on the turn of the tide. 
 
 In the meantime important events were oc. 
 curring on the opposite shore, small in their 
 beginning, but of infinite importance in results. 
 But for them Andre would have effected his 
 escape safely, Arnold's plans would have ma- 
 
i;6 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 tured, West Point would have fallen, British 
 communication with Canada would have been 
 opened, the war would have been brought to a 
 close, and these United States might have re- 
 mained till this day the colonies of Great Brit- 
 ain. All this was prevented by two musket 
 shots fired from a cider-mill. 
 
 On the morning of September 22, Moses 
 Sherwood and Jack Peterson, a mulatto who 
 afterwards enlisted in the army and received a 
 pension for his services, were working their 
 cider-press at Croton Point, on the farm which 
 of late has been known as Underbill's vineyard. 
 As was customary in those stirring days, the 
 men carried with them their muskets to their 
 places of work or of worship. These two had 
 watched the movements of the English man- 
 o'-war with suspicion, wondering what her 
 errand could be, so far from her usual anchor- 
 age. 
 
 Their suspicions were increased when they 
 saw a boat put off from the Vulttfre, possibly 
 with the purpose of communicating with the 
 western shore to discover the cause of Maj. 
 Andre's delay. Each took up his musket, and 
 one after the other fired upon the boat, the 
 last shot splintering an oar, and causing an im- 
 
A SPIRITED ENGAGEMENT. \JJ 
 
 mediate return to the ship, which forthwith 
 entered into a spirited engagement with the 
 cider-mill. The noise brought all the neigh- 
 boring farmers to the spot, and as fortunately 
 there was a twelve-pounder field-piece at hand, 
 it was brought into requisition. They dragged 
 it down to the end of the point and directed it 
 over a bank of natural earthworks against the 
 Vulture. She replied with round shot, one of 
 which lodged in an oak tree. When the tree 
 fell from decay not many years ago, the ball 
 was extracted, and is now one of the many 
 curiosities gathered by Dr. Coutant at Tarry- 
 town. The farmers made it too hot for the 
 sloop of war, and she accordingly dropped 
 down the river, out of range. 
 
 The conspirators at Haverstraw had wit- 
 nessed the action, and, as may be imagined, 
 were chagrined at its consequences. Smith 
 himself was too badly frightened to undertake 
 the return of Andre by passing the battery 
 and running the risk of being overhauled by 
 patrol boats, and as Arnold was unaccountably 
 unwilling to provide another flag of truce, the 
 boat's crew became suspicious and absolutely 
 refused to go upon the errand. Arnold ac- 
 cordingly departed for his quarters, after pro- 
 
 12 
 
178 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 viding Smith and Andre each with a pass, and 
 instructing the former to escort the latter to 
 a place of safety, whence he might find his 
 way to New York. 
 
 Dr. Coutant has the facsimile of Andre's 
 pass from Arnold. It is written with a steady 
 hand on a bit of paper about the size of a half 
 page of a note sheet. Late in the afternoon 
 Smith and Andre" mounted the two saddle- 
 horses that had been used in the morning, and 
 rode three or four miles up the river to the 
 ferry at Stony Point. The horses were taken 
 across with them in the scow which served for 
 the King's Ferry transit. Thus the landing 
 at Verplanck's Point was effected, but as 
 yet the spy and the traitor did not feel at 
 ease. 
 
 Smith was a good pilot. After finding com- 
 fortable lodgings at the house of McKoy, a 
 Tory Scotchman, on the Yorktown road which 
 was taken in order to avoid the American 
 militia scattered along the river 'bank, they 
 went on in the morning to Pine's Bridge, 
 where they parted, Smith directing Andre to 
 take the road through to White Plains, and 
 thus avoid the river altogether. Last winter 
 Fanny and I traced them along this road and 
 
AN IMPUDENT SCOUNDREL. \ Jg 
 
 came to the corner below Pine's Bridge, where 
 Andre, left to his own resources, made his mis- 
 take of turning to the right in the direction of 
 the Hudson. Smith pursued his route, not 
 homewards, but towards Fishkill, where his 
 wife happened to be, congratulating himself 
 on his perfect safety after so many hairbreadth 
 escapes, for they had twice been called upon 
 to show their passes on the road, and once 
 narrowly escaped detection. He jogged along 
 comfortably and arrived at Fishkill in due 
 time. 
 
 But he was a greatly astonished man, when, 
 after the conscientious discharge of his patri- 
 otic duties, sleeping by the side of the partner 
 of his previous joys and future sorrows, he was 
 roughly dragged from his bed and taken down 
 to Washington's headquarters, at what is now 
 Garrison's Landing. He could not under- 
 stand it at all. But he was soon brought to 
 " a realizing sense of his lost condition." 
 
 I wonder that no historic painter has por- 
 trayed that meeting of Washington and Josh- 
 ua Hett Smith. Smith coolly asked the Gen- 
 eral why he desired to see him, and why the 
 invitation to his presence had been so rude 
 and abrupt. He had not long to wait for the 
 
ISO WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 answer. " Sir ! Do you know that Arnold 
 has fled, and that Mr. Anderson, whom you 
 have piloted through our lines, proves to be 
 Maj. John Andre, the Adjutant-General of the 
 British Army, now our prisoner? I expect 
 him here under a guard of one hundred horse, 
 to meet his fate as a spy, and unless you con- 
 fess who were your accomplices, I shall sus- 
 pend you both on yonder tree before the 
 door!" 
 
 Even then, Smith's audacity did not forsake 
 him. He says that he undertook to " argue 
 the question " with Washington, informing 
 him that he was exceeding the limits of his 
 authority, and that he should demand a trial 
 before the civil court, for he was not under his 
 command in the army. " Whereupon," he 
 adds, " the General was irritated and ordered 
 the guards to take me away." It is said that 
 on rare occasions the Father of his Country 
 supplemented his discourse with expletives. 
 If ever they were justifiable, the Occasion for 
 them was when this impudent scoundrel was 
 before him. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The First Battle in American Naval History. 
 — Over the West Shore Ridges. — The Old 
 Village of Tappan. — Andre" Memories and 
 Relics. 
 
 I LEFT my kind-hearted host, Mr. Lilburn, 
 returning many thanks for his hospitality, for 
 the information imparted by the documents 
 in his library, and the supply of traditionary 
 lore at his command. Fanny, too, was re- 
 freshed, for the oats served out to her were 
 not musty, like the papers I had feasted upon. 
 Evening was drawing on, and we had a ride 
 of twenty miles before us to Piermont, where 
 I proposed to pass the night with a friend, one 
 of those sensible men who believe that the 
 city is the place for business, and the country 
 is the place for home where clubs, theatres, 
 and the demands of society add not to the 
 toil of the counting-room, thus making life an 
 ever revolving tread-mill, on which rest is 
 
 never found. 
 
 181 
 
1 82 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Riding again through the town of Haver- 
 straw, and following for a few miles further 
 along the bank of the river, I think of more 
 Revolutionary incidents than I have space to 
 chronicle. All the way from Nyack to Haver- 
 straw, wherever a landing could be found, 
 the British made their incessant raids. Had 
 the people been united, few and scattered as 
 they were, these incursions would have been 
 of less account. In our late sectional war 
 we were geographically divided, and for the 
 most part States were open adversaries of 
 States, but in that of the old days no man 
 could tell if his next-door neighbor was his 
 friend or his enemy. 
 
 Far greater atrocities were perpetrated by 
 Tory townsmen on the patriots among whom 
 they dwelt, with whom they professed friend- 
 ship and worshipped God, than by the invad- 
 ing British troops. It is not surprising that 
 when the war was over, the property of the 
 Tories was confiscated, and they themselves 
 were driven into exile. In the ancient local 
 histories we read of assassinations and brutali- 
 ties almost incredible, occurring in this region 
 of the country settled by quiet Dutchmen, 
 surpassing in enormity anything of their na- 
 
FIRST NA VAL BA TTLE. 1 8 3 
 
 ture in all other parts of the land. From the 
 Ramapo Valley to the shores of the Hud- 
 son there were constant successions of mur- 
 der, rape, and arson. Patrols were always on 
 guard to prevent the landing of the British, 
 not so much from fear of them as from the 
 apprehension that their own townsmen would 
 be encouraged by their presence to cut their 
 throats. 
 
 Exasperated by these frequent occurrences, 
 they organized an impromptu fleet for the 
 purpose of attack upon the water. Although 
 it does not come within the scope of the great 
 works on American naval history to chronicle 
 it, nevertheless the first naval battle after the 
 Declaration of Independence was fought di- 
 rectly opposite the road upon which I was 
 now riding. On August 3, 1776, Skipper Ben 
 Tupper constituted himself the first Admiral 
 of our Navy, and with a fleet of four sloops, 
 attacked the British ships Phenix and Rose, 
 fighting them for two hours, and finally driv- 
 ing them below Tarrytown, within their own 
 lines. This action was followed by a series of 
 similar engagements to ward off the hostilities 
 that for the most part were directed against 
 the people of the western shore while the in- 
 
1 84 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 habitants on the opposite side of the river 
 were comparatively unmolested. 
 
 Two or three miles below Haverstraw the 
 boldness of the shore makes a road impracti- 
 cable. We turned to the right, following up a 
 steep hill that was to bring us over to the 
 other side of the river coast range. It leads 
 through a gorge, which in summer must be 
 most attractive to the many tourists who 
 come from the city to saunter in the shade of 
 its trees and rocks. The trees, naked in win- 
 ter, are clothed with verdure in the summer, 
 but the rocky cliffs through which the road is 
 cut, bare as they are in summer, were now 
 draped in silver sheen and fringed with icy 
 stalactites. 
 
 Before we left the level, the shadows of the 
 hills had fallen over the frost-bound river, 
 but now that we had mounted to the summit 
 we caught up with the bright light and saw 
 far in the west over that hitherto undiscov- 
 ered country, the snow-clad hills and valleys, 
 the black forest, the straggling towns and vil- 
 lages, a wide-spread panorama of surprising 
 beauty, just as the last touch was being given 
 to it by the setting sun. Then we descended 
 the western slope and went rapidly on a iew 
 
UNIVERSAL HOSPITALITY. 1 85 
 
 miles more through the valley until we came 
 to another pass of the hills, through which we 
 reached again the river bank at Nyack. It was 
 a beautiful moonlight night, tempting to the 
 merry sleigh-riders we met constantly as we 
 passed through the town and its suburbs till 
 we came to the house of my friend in the out- 
 skirts of Piermont. 
 
 In my travels about the world I have fre- 
 quently had occasion to contrast the habits, 
 manners, and social characteristics of its dif- 
 ferent peoples. I have never gone among any, 
 civilized or uncivilized, who were absolutely 
 inhospitable. The savage is often as hospit- 
 able as the Christian. I will not switch off 
 from my track so far from the main route of 
 this narrative as would be necessary to tell the 
 story of a three months' entertainment by an 
 Eastern Rajah, which would go far to estab- 
 lish the universality of this charming domestic 
 virtue. 
 
 I cannot help it if the careless reader shall 
 accuse us of being "dead beats " along the 
 road. I sometimes think that we are. Never- 
 theless, if we are asked to come again, we shall 
 go, for I have arrived at the conclusion that 
 there is no more genuine and sincere hospital- 
 
1 86 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 ity in the world than among our own country- 
 men, and that they never pass the Spanish 
 compliment of placing everything at your 
 disposal without meaning it to be strictly 
 true that the house is your own for the time 
 being. I found it so at Piermont, and Fanny 
 found the stable exceedingly to her liking, as 
 was demonstrated by her activity on the fol- 
 lowing day. 
 
 I had in years gone by wandered with my 
 host through vineyards and under the shade 
 of the olive trees of the Mediterranean Isles, 
 and now I found him seated by the side of 
 his "fruitful vine, with his own olive-plants 
 around his table." Then it was burning sum- 
 mer, now it was " frosty yet kindly" winter. 
 There it was sunshine without. Here it was 
 sunshine within. 
 
 On the next morning the weather had mod- 
 erated so that although the ice and the snow 
 still maintained their grip, the sun heat was 
 preparing them for a speedy dissolution, and 
 the icicles, the roofs and the trees began to 
 drop tears in view of their coming departure. 
 The road again turns inland, passing down- 
 wards several miles behind the Palisade range. 
 
 On arrival at Tappan, a distance of four 
 
D UTCH PA RSONA GE. 1 8/ 
 
 miles, I called upon the minister of the village 
 church, and presenting a note from my host of 
 the previous night, was cordially welcomed at 
 the parsonage. It is one of those old-fashioned 
 Dutch houses — Mr. Williamson could not tell 
 exactly how old — that was built in the first 
 part of the last century, if not even earlier, a 
 solid structure of thick stone walls, large chim- 
 neys, low-studded with heavy cross-beams. I 
 fancy that on the library table, which like all 
 the furniture including the big clock that has 
 ticked with slow measured cadence dealing 
 out their spans of life to the many succeeding 
 dominies but still as youthful itself as the 
 jolly sun upon its face, there have been vol- 
 umes of sermons written in Dutch for the edi- 
 fication of the crumbling bones and dust now 
 in the venerable churchyard. Half a cent- 
 ury ago Dutch was continued as the pulpit 
 language of many churches in south-western 
 New York and north-eastern New Jersey. 
 Latterly these Dutch churches have been 
 " Reformed " in language and doctrine, so 
 that, although they have come to differ 
 in no essential degree from Presbyterians, they 
 retain their former name only out of regard 
 to the old associations connected with it. 
 
1 8 8 WINTER SKE TCHES. 
 
 Fanny went to take her ease in a stable that 
 had been occupied by more generations of 
 horses, than the house had held of men, now 
 dead and gone, the first of which may have 
 been a square-built galliot-shaped animal, im- 
 ported from Holland. Then, the dominie 
 having shown the yellow church records and 
 other curiosities of his library, took me upon a 
 walk, discoursing as we went on incidents of 
 history, and particularly of those concerning 
 the last days of Major Andre. 
 
 The church in which his trial was held, was 
 built in 1694, rebuilt in 1788, and replaced by 
 the present structure in 1835 at a gain in size, 
 but as would appear from the drawings, at a 
 loss in architectural taste. The same remark 
 may apply to the quaint stone-built Dutch 
 house occupied by Washington as his head- 
 quarters, but now, although its main part is 
 left standing, disfigured by the addition of a 
 flat-topped wooden wing after the modern 
 style of Jersey renaissance. The present occu- 
 pant unfortunately had gone away with the 
 keys in his pocket, so that we could only sur- 
 vey the exterior; but Mr. Williamson pointed 
 out the corner room where, when the proces- 
 sion passed on the way to the gallows, Wash- 
 
HARMLESS VENOM. 1 89 
 
 ington sat with the curtains drawn, commun- 
 ing with his own thoughts, and wishing from 
 his inmost soul that the bitter cup might 
 have passed from the unfortunate victim. 
 And yet it was a woman, who only lacked the 
 claws and the fangs of a tigress, who assailed 
 him thus : 
 
 " Oh, Washington ! I thought thee great and good, 
 Nor knew thy Nero thirst of guiltless blood ! 
 Severe to use the power that Fortune gave, 
 Thou cool determined murderer of the brave ! 
 Lost to each fairer virtue that inspires 
 The genuine fervor of the patriot fires ! 
 And you, the base abettors of the doom 
 That sunk his blooming honors in the tomb, 
 The opprobrious tomb your hardened hearts decreed, 
 While all he asked was as the brave to bleed 1 
 Nor other boon the glorious youth implored 
 Save the cold mercy of the warrior sword ! 
 O dark and pitiless ! Your impious hate 
 O'erwhelmed the here in the ruffian's fate ! 
 Stopt with the felon cord the rosy breath, 
 And venomed with disgrace the darts of death ! 
 Remorseless Washington ! the day shall come 
 Of deep repentance for this barbarous doom ! 
 When injured Andre's memory shall inspire 
 A kindling army with resistless fire. 
 Each falchion sharpens that the Britons wield, 
 And lead their fiercest lion to the field ! 
 Then, when each hope of thine shall set in night, 
 When dubious dread and unavailing flight 
 
190 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 Impel your host, thy guilt-upbraided soul 
 
 Shall wish untouched the sacred life you stole, 
 
 And when thy heart appalled, and vanquished pride 
 
 Shall vainly ask the mercy they denied, 
 
 With horror shalt thou meet the fate they gave, 
 
 Nor pity gild the darkness of thy grave ! 
 
 For infamy, with livid hand shall shed 
 
 Eternal mildew on thy ruthless head 1 " 
 
 The author, Miss Seward, was the friend of 
 Honora Sneyd, who had discarded Andre, and 
 had since married and died. That appears to 
 be all of the personal motive which brought 
 out this vindictive curse upon the head of 
 Washington. 
 
 Nearly opposite the house occupied by 
 Washington is another stone building of 
 smaller size. It was a tavern in Revolu- 
 tionary times, and for the occasion, a room 
 in it was used as Andre's prison. It is now 
 the property of an eccentric old physician, who 
 has allowed the roof to tumble in and every- 
 thing to fall out of repair. Lest any visitor 
 should put one of the granite blocks or one of 
 the roof timbers in his pocket and walk away 
 with it, the doctor has surrounded the house 
 with a high board fence which even the agile 
 school-boy is unable to surmount. 
 
 We walked from the village in a westerly 
 
EHE U A NDRE 1 1 9 1 
 
 direction over the road travelled by Andre to 
 his doom on the 2d of October, 108 years ago. 
 Of the Court of Inquiry of six Major-Generals 
 and eight Brigadier-Generals that found him 
 guilty and deserving of execution, Gen. Steuben 
 was the only one who was disposed to be 
 lenient, while Gen. Parsons, who manifested 
 no mercy for him whatever, was ten months 
 afterwards discovered in correspondence with 
 Sir Henry Clinton, with a view of betraying 
 the Continental Army. 
 
 What a sad farewell it must have been to 
 this beautiful world for one so young, before 
 whom there was everything that we old men 
 have left behind — for pleasant as retrospect 
 may be, some clouds hang over it ; but antici- 
 pation has not one dark spot upon it to dim its 
 brightness. It was the most delightful season 
 of the whole year, at high noon, when from the 
 hill on which he stood he could see the coun- 
 try far and near, clothed in all its glorious 
 autumn array — the yellow fields lately reaped, 
 the green pine forests, the already changing 
 maples in their parti-colored dress. There 
 stood the crowd around him who were yet to 
 live and yet to have these scenes before them, 
 who were still to inhale the balmy air of which 
 
I92 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 in a moment more he should breathe the last ; 
 and harder than all he was to die an ignomin- 
 ious death with the fear that its baseness would 
 ever attach to his memory. Who would not 
 have pitied him, and what man could there 
 have been in that assembly who would not 
 have rejoiced to have seen him go free if the 
 traitor Arnold could have been made to suffer 
 in his stead ? 
 
 A touching tribute to his memory, written by 
 Dean Stanley on his visit to the spot, was en- 
 graved on the monument lately erected there 
 by one of our countrymen, but it was soon 
 destroyed by some persons who were actuated 
 by personal malice more than by patriotic zeal. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Through Bergen County. — Two Revolutionary 
 Scenes. — A ndre"s Prophetic Lines. — A Lonely 
 Inn. — The Dutch Landlord and His Family. 
 — Return to Nezv York. 
 
 PARTING from the amiable clergyman of 
 Tappan with a high appreciation of his kind- 
 ness, I mounted Fanny again and crossed im- 
 mediately over the border line which separates 
 Rockland County of New York from Bergen 
 County of New Jersey. Schraalenberg was 
 the first village to which we came after a ride 
 of six miles, the country becoming more dis- 
 tinctly Dutch as we progressed. There were 
 numerous quaint old stone houses, many of 
 them with huge projecting stone chimneys, 
 these denoting the highest antiquity when the 
 great industry of Haverstraw and Croton had 
 not been exploited. It has been said that the 
 early settlers imported their bricks from Hol- 
 land, but I apprehend that this legend refers 
 '3 193 
 
194 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 to ornamental tiles rather than to building 
 material. Of these many were brought over, 
 and to this day they may be seen bordering 
 the great fireplaces, where for generations the 
 catechisms and texts of instruction painted 
 upon them have served the purpose of the 
 modern Sunday-school. There, too, are still 
 the barns modelled like Noah's Ark bottom up, 
 low studded like the houses, for as land was 
 cheaper than it now is in Broadway, the heavy- 
 moulded farmers did not care to stretch their 
 legs needlessly in going up-stairs or to weary 
 their arms in pitching hay. 
 
 Everything but the landscape resembles 
 Holland. That is in all its aspects totally 
 different, for Bergen County, at least in its 
 northern part, is not spread over a level, but 
 runs from one hilltop to another. In South 
 Bergen, where there are plenty of swamps, the 
 Dutchman might have felt at home, but on his 
 first coming here he must indeed have consid- 
 ered himself a pilgrim in a strange land. How 
 did he get here, anyway? Did he climb over 
 the Palisades, or did he drift with the tide up 
 the Hackensack ? What was he to do without 
 canals ? I have noticed that in Java, where 
 there are salubrious hills and mountains easily 
 
A DUTCH DREAM. I95 
 
 accessible, he deliberately established himself 
 on the morass at Batavia, so that he could dig 
 a canal, and then die of the yellow fever con- 
 tentedly. 
 
 Why, indeed, did he not settle on the Hack- 
 ensack meadows ? Why do not his country- 
 men come there now ? The descendants of 
 men who redeemed Holland from the sea 
 could surely rescue these meadows from the 
 encroachment of the Hackensack and Passaic 
 Rivers. There is room enough there for a 
 thousand farmers of holdings such as they 
 cultivate with so much success at home. The 
 land is as good and the climate as equable ; 
 but it is a waste, a great area of bog. We 
 may imagine it the property of a thousand 
 sturdy Dutch farmers who have not yet been 
 corrupted with our air of liberty and broken 
 out with the eruptions of extravagance and 
 discontent. We see in our fancy the dykes 
 thrown up and the intersecting canals on 
 which the noiseless trekschuit glides along, 
 the scattered houses and barns, the church 
 spires and windmills, the long avenues of 
 trees, the orchards, gardens, and fields, all pos- 
 sessed by a contented people. They could 
 not live so cheaply here as in Holland ? Per- 
 
I96 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 haps not in all respects just now ; but a 
 change is coming. Still, will anybody tell us 
 why a colony of Dutchmen, who are not am- 
 bitious for luxuries they have not at home, 
 and who would have a better market for their 
 products than they have there, could not 
 thrive under these conditions? 
 
 I do not think that the higher altitudes they 
 sought in their settlement here, improved the 
 temper of the colonists. From all accounts 
 they became very quarrelsome in theology and 
 politics. When the Revolutionary war came, 
 neighbor was pitted against neighbor even 
 more ferociously than were their countrymen 
 on the banks of the Hudson. But they were 
 always a hard-working economical set of 
 people. They made home industries pay. 
 Everything they consumed, with the sole ex- 
 ception of the indispensable gin, was produced 
 by themselves. Men, women and children 
 worked in the fields, and even the baby's 
 weight was utilized in churning but'ter. 
 
 Their descendants to-day, among whom 
 their language and customs prevail more or 
 less, are not in the least intimidated by the 
 threats of Engineer Brotherhoods or Knights 
 of Labor to play havoc with all our means of 
 
A BLOODY MASSACRE. 
 
 l 97 
 
 transportation, for they could survive without 
 them, provided, of course, that a sufficient 
 stock of tobacco had been laid in. And yet, 
 with all their phlegm and apparent indiffer- 
 ence to the outside world, they arose as one 
 man when the news reached them of the first 
 symptoms of a revolt against unjust taxation 
 at Boston in 1774, and sent to that city their 
 message of sympathy. Whatever may be true 
 of other portions of the country, it seems con- 
 clusive that among the farmers along the Hud- 
 son and Hackensack there was from the first, 
 practical unanimity in resisting this system of 
 robbery, not only in council, but in arms, 
 while at the same time, as in this instance of 
 the address of the Bergen people, they were 
 still loyal to the King. It was only when a 
 part of the community thought that the object 
 of the war might be accomplished without 
 independence, and the other part differed with 
 them, that there were deadly enemies in the 
 same town, sometimes in the same house, and 
 even in the same bed. 
 
 It was about three miles from Tappan when 
 we passed the spot of one of the most bloody 
 massacres of the war. It was where the 
 American Col. Baylor had quartered himself 
 
1 98' WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 and 116 men at the home and on the premises 
 of Cornelius Haring, when some of Haring's 
 Tory neighbors gave notice to the British over 
 the river. Col. Grey accordingly, piloted by 
 them, after crossing the Hudson, came upon 
 the detachment unawares by night, and to the 
 great delight of the Tories, massacred every 
 one who could not make his escape. 
 
 Riding a few miles further down, after pass- 
 ing through Schraalenberg, we came near to 
 the scene of the affray above Bull's Ferry, 
 which, although serious and resulting in con- 
 siderable loss of life on both sides, is remem- 
 bered more for the comic description given of 
 it by Major Andre in his poem entitled the 
 "Cow Chace," in which he unmercifully ridi- 
 culed Gen. Wayne. Wayne's main object 
 was to dislodge a force of Tories who had 
 entrenched themselves in a block-house, and 
 he also desired to get possession of a lot of 
 cattle for the commissariat. Andre in his 
 long string of verses puts this in the mouth of 
 Wayne as issuing his orders to his subordi- 
 nates: 
 
 " I, under cover of th' attack, 
 Whilst you are all at blows, 
 From " English neighborhood " and Tamack 
 Will drive away the cows." 
 
HOOPER'S MURDER. 
 
 199 
 
 There is one stanza in this poem in which 
 he writes of cold-blooded murder in such a 
 rollicking style that unless, as it is charity to 
 hope, he did not know what the circumstances 
 were, our sympathy for the fate which befell 
 him afterwards, might be entirely withdrawn, 
 and men might say that his own request to 
 "die without a rope" was denied him as a 
 punishment for the utterance : 
 
 "But, oh Thaddeus Possett, why 
 Should thy poor soul elope, 
 And why should Titus Hooper die, 
 Ah, die — without a rope ! " 
 
 Mr. Clayton says that Hooper " was mur- 
 dered by the Tories under John Van de Roder, 
 a neighbor, who entered his home in the night, 
 and after shooting him through the head com- 
 pelled his wife to hold a candle while they 
 thrust nineteen bayonets into him." 
 
 What had Hooper done? Perhaps some- 
 body can tell us something that may be said 
 in extenuation of the brutal conduct of Van 
 de Roder, and of the inhuman rhyme of 
 Andre. The closing lines are almost prophetic 
 of retribution : 
 
200 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 " And now I close my epic verse ; 
 I tremble as I show it, 
 Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, 
 Should ever catch the poet. " 
 
 Musing on all these things, for though I had 
 not travelled many miles in the last two days, 
 I had travelled back many years, I gave 
 Fanny a loose rein and became careless of my 
 road. She did not pay proper attention to the 
 sign-boards, but wandered off to the right 
 through some by-road of the undiscovered 
 country. I think it was with instinct that she 
 might find a stopping-place for our midday 
 meal, for soon a little out-of-the-way Dutch 
 tavern hove in sight. Why it was there I can- 
 not tell. There was no neighborhood of 
 houses whose tenants might frequent its bar- 
 room at evening, and all the custom that could 
 come to its doors must be that of the prudent 
 farmers going in and coming out from market, 
 men who are chary of the proceeds of their 
 cabbages and potatoes. 
 
 It must have been, as I have been, living on 
 the memories of the past. Before it was a 
 wide stoop, and as I pulled up alongside, I 
 could see the portly landlord sitting in his 
 own company by the bar-room stove, quietly 
 
FANNY'S MISFORTUNE. 201 
 
 smoking his pipe. He slowly turned his head, 
 but made no effort to rise and open the door. 
 I dismounted and entering the house, said, 
 "Good afternoon." The landlord replied, 
 "Goede namiddag." "Can I have my horse 
 fed?" I asked. Whereupon he called out, 
 " Hannes ! Draag zorg of het paard dezer 
 heer." 
 
 The boy came forth from another room, and 
 led Fanny to the stable as I followed. 
 
 " Now," said I, after I had taken off the 
 saddle and bridle, a proceeding rather above 
 his comprehension, " give her four quarts of 
 oats." " Wy hebben geen haver," replied the 
 boy, shaking his head solemnly, by which I 
 understood that there were no oats. 
 
 "What do you feed your own horses on, 
 then?" I asked, as I surveyed two melancholy 
 looking skeletons staggering about the barn- 
 yard. 
 
 "Wy geven onzen paarden hooi," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 Looking in the crib, I saw some Hacken- 
 sack bulrushes, and I told the boy that my 
 mare would not eat such stuff. 
 
 " Laat haar blyven voor een week Zy will 
 honger genoeg hebben om it te eeten," said he. 
 
202 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 After all, Dutch is not so very much unlike 
 English. It was easy enough to understand 
 this: "Let her stay a week and she will be 
 hungry enough to eat it." Perhaps she might, 
 but it was not more than twelve miles to New 
 York, so that Fanny was not compelled to try 
 the often-told experiment of the Irishman's 
 horse of living without eating, of which his 
 owner remarked that it was an entire success, 
 but that unfortunately " just as he got cliverly 
 larnt he died." I pitied her, but reminded 
 her of the old song which runs : 
 
 " There was a man who had a cow ; 
 He had no hay to give her. 
 He took his pipe and played the tune, 
 'Consider, cow, consider."' 
 
 I gave her a lump of sugar, and promised to 
 bring her out a piece of bread to "stay her 
 stomach." The landlord could wrestle some- 
 what better with English than the, boy, but 
 his language was very composite in its con- 
 nection. He readily assented to my request 
 for some dinner, but when I ventured to ask 
 for a broiled chicken, having seen some fowls 
 picking about the premises, he awoke from his 
 stupor, and the blood coursed rapidly through 
 
A DUTCH VROUW. 203 
 
 his veins. " Kip ? Myn God ! " he exclaimed. 
 " Wat meant you ? Neen, neen ! If I kill een 
 kip, de kip don't never be a hen, en daar won't 
 be no eyeren. If I killed kippen last year, you 
 don't won't get no eyeren mit your ham to- 
 day !" As the French say, " he had reason." 
 It was a sound argument, and I was convinced 
 of its force when a very nice dish of ham and 
 eggs was served by the vrouw of my landlord. 
 She was a woman with a head such as Rubens 
 was wont to paint, hair combed back and sur- 
 mounted by a cap that might serve for day or 
 night; blue eyes, rosy cheeks and lips. She 
 was dressed in a short woollen gown with a 
 white apron in front and nothing behind ; she 
 could sit down without inconvenience to her- 
 self, and she could stand up in a crowd without 
 inconvenience to others. 
 
 Two little girls, with their yellow hair braided 
 and coiled on the backs of their heads, and 
 held in place by high horn combs, were sitting 
 on the floor, holding and balling up a skein of 
 yarn, and that uncarpeted floor was as clean as 
 the table-cloth and the bright ware upon it. 
 Surrounded by these pretty pictures, which 
 seemed to have been taken from their frames 
 and spread about for my entertainment, I dined 
 
204 WINTER SKETCHES. 
 
 most agreeably ; and I may add that the feast 
 was moistened with a glass of choice Holland 
 gin, which the landlord informed me that he 
 did not sell, but sometimes gave to himself. 
 Poor Fanny had in the meantime employed 
 herself in pulling the sedge from the crib, and 
 trampling it under her feet in disgust. It was 
 her worst experience upon the journey. 
 
 The warm afternoon sun had played havoc 
 with the " beautiful snow," turning it into yel- 
 low water, which choked the gutters and over- 
 flowed the roads, and when we reached the 
 main thoroughfare all was slush and mud. 
 Wading through it, we came to the toll-bridge 
 over the Hackensack, and then to another toll- 
 gate at the causeway turnpike, and so on to 
 a Jersey driveway in feeble imitation of New 
 York avenues, with like shingle road-houses 
 and rows of sheds. We were no longer in the 
 country, but among unpaved and unmacada- 
 mized streets lined with saloons and breweries. 
 Huge lager-beer wagons, drawn by elephantine 
 horses and driven by animated beer casks, 
 splashed along. Then we came to the taper- 
 ing backbone of the Palisade range, which 
 finally loses itself at Hoboken, and, crossing 
 
WEE HA WKEN AND FINIS. 2 05 
 
 it, descended at Weehawken amid excavations 
 mud, filth, and wet coal dust, over a gridiron 
 of railway tracks, to the -old ferry," which 
 took us to New York. 
 
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