The Hudson Part 23

=Tivoli=, above North Bay took its name from a pre-revolutionary "Chateau," home of the late Colonel DePeyster. The "Callender Place"

to the southeast, was formerly the property of Johnston Livingston.

Two miles from the river is the home of Mr. J. N. Lewis, a morning view from whose veranda is still remembered, and it is to him that the writer is indebted for a pleasant trip to the ruins on Cruger's Island. The residence of the late J. Watts DePeyster stands on a commanding bluff north of the railway station and it was beside his open fireside many years ago that he told the writer how his house was saved from Vaughan's cannon. "Rose Hill," was mistaken for "Clermont,"

but a well-stocked cellar mollified the British captain.

O! stream of the mountains if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to questions of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would come for the days that are gone.

_Legends of the Hudson._

It grew like one of the old English family houses, with the increase of the family, until, in strange but picturesque outline--the prevailing style being Italian, somewhat in the shape of a cross--it is now 114 feet long by 87 feet deep. The tower in the rear, devoted to library purposes, rises to the height of about sixty feet. This library, first and last, has contained between twenty and thirty thousand volumes. Such indefinite language is used, because the owner donated over half this number to the New York Historical Society, the New York Society Library, and a number of other similar organizations in different parts of the United States. As a working library, replete with dictionaries and cyclopaedias, in many tongues and on almost every subject, it is a marvel. It is likewise very valuable for its collections on military and several other special topics. From it was selected and given to the New York Historical Society, one of the finest possible collections on the History of Holland, from the earliest period down to the present time. "Rose Hill" was left in his will to the Leake and Watts Orphan Home.

A ferry from Tivoli to Saugerties affords communication between the two villages. Glasco Landing, on the west bank, lies between the residences of Henry Corse, on the south, and Mrs. Vanderpool (sister of the late President Martin Van Buren), on the north.

In locating the residences along the river and dealing so often in the words "north" and "south," we are reminded of a good story of Martin Van Buren. It is said that it was as difficult to get a direct answer from him as from Bismarck or Gladstone. Two friends were going up with him one day on a river boat and one made a wager with the other that a direct answer could not be secured on any question from the astute statesman. They approached the ex-president and one of them said, "Mr.

Van Buren, my friend and I have had a little discussion; will you tell us, does or does not the sun rise in the east?" The ex-president calmly drew up a chair, and said, "You must remember that the east and west are merely relative terms." "That settles it," said the questioner, "I'll pay the bet."

How grateful is the sudden change From arid pavements to the gra.s.s, From narrow streets that thousands range To meadows where June zephyrs pa.s.s.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

It is a drop for the old Hudson, and a merry time it has until it gets down off the mountains. I have thought how long it would be before that very water which was made for the wilderness will be under the bottom of a vessel and tossing in the salt sea.

_James Fenimore Cooper._

=Saugerties=, 101 miles from New York. From its location (being the nearest of the river towns to the Catskills), it naturally hoped to secure a large share of tourist travel, but Kingston and Catskill presented easier and better facilities of access and materially shortened the hours of arrival at the summit. Plaaterkill Clove, wilder and grander than Kaaterskill Clove, about nine miles west of the village, has Plaaterkill Mountain, Indian Head, Twin Mountains and Sugar Loaf on the south, and High Peak and Round Top on the north. Its eighteen waterfalls not only give great variety to a pedestrian trip, but also ample field for the artist's brush. The Esopus, meeting the Hudson at Saugerties, supplies unfailing waterpower for its manufacturing industries, prominent among which are the Sheffield Paper Company, the Barkley Fibre Company (wood pulp), the Martin Company (card board) and a white lead factory. There are also large s.h.i.+pments of blue stone, evidences of which are seen in many places near at hand along the western bank. Many attractive strolls near Saugerties invite the visitor, notably the walk to Barkley Heights south of the Esopus. An extensive view is obtained from the _West Sh.o.r.e Railroad_ station west of the village and the drive thereto.

North of Saugerties will be seen the docks and hamlets of Malden, Evesport and West Camp, also the residences of J. G. Myers to the northwest of the Rock islet, and of H. T. Coswell, near which the steamer pa.s.ses to the west of Livingston Flats. The west sh.o.r.e at West Camp was settled by exiles from the Palatinate, about 1710, and one of the old churches still stands a short distance inland. We are now in the midst of--

=The Livingston Country=, whose names and memories dot the landscape and adorn the history of the Hudson Valley. Dutchess and Columbia Counties meet on the east bank opposite that part of Saugerties where Sawyer's Creek flows into the Hudson. "Idele" was originally called the Chancellor Place. "Clermont" is about half a mile to the north, the home of Clermont Livingston, an early manor house built by Robert R. Livingston, who, next to Hamilton, was the greatest New York statesman during our revolutionary period. The manor church, not seen from the river, is at the old village of Clermont, about five miles due west from the mansion. The Livingstons are of Scotch ancestry and have an ill.u.s.trious lineage. Mary Livingston, one of the "four Marys"

who attended Mary Queen of Scots during her childhood and education in France, was of the same family. Robert Livingston, born in 1654, came to the Hudson Valley with his father, and in 1686 purchased from the Indians a tract of country reaching east twenty-two miles to the boundary of Ma.s.sachusetts with a river frontage of twelve miles. This purchase was created, "the Lords.h.i.+p and Manor of Livingston," by Governor Thomas Dongan. In 1692 Robert built the manor house, but did not reside in it for twenty years. He was a friend of Captain Kidd and a powerful promoter of his enterprises. The manor consisted of 260,000 acres. The estate of 13,000 acres, given to his second son Robert, was called Clermont. Philip, his first son, inherited 247,000 acres, by old-time primogeniture succession. From each of these two families sprang a line of vigorous and resolute men. Robert R. Livingston, our revolutionary hero, descended from the smaller estate, owned "Clermont" at the time it was burned by the British. It was soon rebuilt and Lafayette was a guest at the mansion during his visit to the United States in 1824.

Let us not then neglect to improve the advantages we possess; let us avail ourselves of the present moment to fix lasting peace upon the broad basis of natural union; let us while it is still in our power lay the foundation of our long happiness and the happiness of our posterity.

_Robert R. Livingston._

Above West Camp landing on the west side, is the boundary line between Ulster and Greene Counties; Ulster having kept us company all the way from Hampton Point opposite New Hamburgh. Throughout this long stretch of the river one industry must not be overlooked, well described by John Burroughs:

=The Shad Industry.=--"When the chill of the ice is out of the river and the snow and frost out of the air, the fishermen along the sh.o.r.e are on the lookout for the first arrival of shad. A few days of warm south wind the latter part of April will soon blow them up; it is true also, that a cold north wind will as quickly blow them back.

Preparations have been making for them all winter. In many a farm-house or other humble dwelling along the river, the ancient occupation of knitting of fish-nets has been plied through the long winter evenings, perhaps every grown member of the household, the mother and her daughters as well as the father and his sons, lending a hand. The ordinary gill or drift-net used for shad fis.h.i.+ng in the Hudson is from a half to three-quarters of a mile long, and thirty feet wide, containing about fifty or sixty pounds of fine linen twine, and it is a labor of many months to knit one. Formerly the fish were taken mainly by immense seines, hauled by a large number of men; but now all the deeper part of the river is fished with the long, delicate gill-nets that drift to and fro with the tide, and are managed by two men in a boat. The net is of fine linen thread, and is practically invisible to the shad in the obscure river current: it hangs suspended perpendicularly in the water, kept in position by buoys at the top and by weights at the bottom; the buoys are attached by cords twelve or fifteen feet long, which allow the net to sink out of the reach of the keels of pa.s.sing vessels. The net is thrown out on the ebb tide, stretching nearly across the river, and drifts down and then back on the flood, the fish being snared behind the gills in their efforts to pa.s.s through the meshes. I envy fishermen their intimate acquaintance with the river. They know it by night as well as by day, and learn all its moods and phases. The net is a delicate instrument that reveals all the hidden currents and by-ways, as well as all the sunken snags and wrecks at the bottom. By day the fisherman notes the shape and position of his net by means of the line or buoys; by night he marks the far end of it with a lantern fastened upon a board or block. The night tides he finds differ from the day--the flood at night being much stronger than at other times, as if some pressure had been removed with the sun, and the freed currents found less hindrance. The fishermen have terms and phrases of their own. The wooden tray upon which the net is coiled, and which sits in the stern of the boat, is called a 'cuddy.' The net is divided into 'shots.' If a pa.s.sing sloop or schooner catches it with her centre-board or her anchor, it gives way where two or three shoots meet, and thus the whole net is not torn. The top cord or line of the net is called a 'cimline.' One fisherman 'plugs' another when he puts out from the sh.o.r.e and casts in ahead of him, instead of going to the general starting place, and taking his turn. This always makes bad blood. The luck of the born fisherman is about as conspicuous with the gill-net as with the rod and line, some boats being noted for their great catches the season through. No doubt the secret is mainly through application to the business in hand, but that is about all that distinguishes the successful angler. The shad campaign is one that requires pluck and endurance; no regular sleep, no regular meals; wet and cold, heat and wind and tempest, and no great gains at last. But the sturgeon fishers, who come later and are seen the whole summer through, have an indolent, lazy time of it. They fish around the 'slack-water,'

catching the last of the ebb and the first of the flow, and hence drift but little either way. To a casual observer they appear as if anch.o.r.ed and asleep. But they wake up when they have a 'strike,' which may be every day, or not once a week. The fishermen keep their eye on the line of buoys, and when two or more of them are hauled under, he knows his game has run foul of the net, and he hastens to the point.

The sturgeon is a pig, without the pig's obstinacy. He spends much of the time rooting and feeding in the mud at the bottom, and encounters the net, coa.r.s.e and strong, when he goes abroad. He strikes, and is presently hopelessly entangled, when he comes to the top and is pulled into the boat, like a great sleepy sucker. For so dull and lubbery a fish, the sturgeon is capable of some very lively antics; as, for instance, his habit of leaping full length into the air and coming down with a great splash. He has thus been known to leap unwittingly into a pa.s.sing boat, to his own great surprise, and to the alarm and consternation of the inmates."

The swelling river, into his green gulfs, Unshadowed save by pa.s.sing sails above, Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys The summer in his chilly bed.

_William Cullen Bryant._

I heard the plaintiff note of the Whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash of the sturgeon.

_Was.h.i.+ngton Irving._

=Germantown.=--Germantown Station is now seen on the east bank, and between this and Germantown Dock, three miles to the north, is obtained the best view of the "Man in the Mountain," readily traced by the following outline: The peak to the south is the knee, the next to the north is the breast, and two or three above this the chin, the nose and the forehead. How often from the slope of Hillsdale, forty miles away on the western trend of the Berks.h.i.+res, when a boy, playing by the fountain-heads of the Kinderhook and the Roeliffe Jansen's Creek, have I looked out upon this mountain range aglow in the sunset, and at even-tide heard my grandfather tell of his far-off journeys to Towanda, Pennsylvania, when he drove through the great Cloves of the Catskills, where twice he met "a bear" which retreated at the sound of his old flint-lock, and then when I went to sleep at night how I pulled the coverlet closer about my head, all on account of those two bears that had been dead for more than forty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAN IN THE MOUNTAIN.]

And, sister, now my children come To find the water just as cool, To play about our grandsire's home, To see our pictures in the pool.

_Wallace Bruce._

Alps of the Hudson, whose bold summits rise Into the upper ether of the skies, Cleaving with calm content The cloudless crystal of the firmament.

_Joel Benton._

The Catskills were called by the Indians On-ti-o-ras, or mountains of the sky, as they sometimes seem like clouds along the horizon. This range of mountains was supposed by the Indians to have been originally a monster who devoured all the children of the red men, until the great spirit touched him when he was going down to the salt lake to bathe, and here he remains. "Two little lakes upon the summit were regarded the eyes of the monster, and these are open all the summer; but in the winter they are covered with a thick crust or heavy film; but whether sleeping or waking tears always trickle down his cheeks.

In these mountains, according to Indian belief, was kept the great treasury of storm and suns.h.i.+ne, presided over by an old squaw spirit who dwelt on the highest peak of the mountains. She kept day and night shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one at a time. She manufactured new moons every month, cutting up the old ones into stars," and, like the old aeolus of mythology, shut the winds up in the caverns of the hills:--

Where Manitou once lived and reigned, Great Spirit of a race gone by, And Ontiora lies enchained With face uplifted to the sky.

The Catskill Mountains are now something more than a realm of romance and poetry or a mountain range of beauty along our western horizon, for, from this time forth the old squaw spirit will be kept busy with her "Treasury of Tear Clouds," as the water supply of New York is to come from these mountain sources.

=The Catskill Water Supply.=--The cost of this great undertaking is estimated at $162,000,000. Four creeks: The Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie and Catskill will const.i.tute the main source of supply. The total area of the entire watershed is over nine hundred square miles, and the supply will exceed 800,000,000 gallons daily. The work projected will bring to the city 500,000,000 gallons per day.

The Ashoken Reservoir, 12 miles long and two miles wide, will hold 120,000,000,000 gallons. The Catskill Aqueduct supply from Ashoken Reservoir will deliver the water without pumping to Hill View Reservoir in Yonkers high enough for gravity distribution. It will take from ten to fifteen years to complete the work, which is begun none too early, as the population of Greater New York will be over 5,000,000 in 1915, and its water consumption 1,000,000,000 gallons. In 1930 the population will be 7,000,000 and will call for a consumption of 100,000,000,000 gallons daily. We are indeed "ancients of the earth and in the morning of our times." From the far limits of the gathering grounds some of the water will flow 130 miles to reach the city hall, and 20 miles further to the southern extremity of Staten Island.