Part 12 (1/2)
_Henry T. Tuckerman._
=Tompkin's Cove.=--North of Stony Point we see great quarries of limestone, the princ.i.p.al industry of the village of Tompkin's Cove.
Gravel is also s.h.i.+pped from this place for Central Park roads and driveways in New York City. The tourist, looking north from the forward deck of the steamer, sees no opening in the mountains, and it is amusing to hear the various conjectures of the pa.s.sengers; as usual, the ”unexpected” happens. The steamer turns to the left and sweeps at once into the grand scenery of the Highlands. The straight forward course, which seems the more natural, would land the steamer against the _Hudson River Railroad_, crossing the Peekskill River.
It is said that an old skipper, Jans Peek, ran up this stream, years before the railroad was built, and did not know that he had left the Hudson, or rather that the Hudson was ”left” until he ran aground in the shoal water of the bay. The next morning he discovered that it was a goodly land, and the place bears his name unto this day.
The Highlands and the Palisades Mirror their beauty in the tide, The history of whose forest shades A nation reads with conscious pride.
_Wallace Bruce._
=Peekskill=, 40 miles from New York, is a pleasant city on the quiet bay which deeply indents the eastern bank. The property in this vicinity was known as Rycks Patent in 1665. In Revolutionary times Fort Independence stood on the point above, where its ruins are still seen. The Franciscan Convent Academy of ”Our Lady of Angels,” guards the point below. In 1797 Peekskill was the headquarters of old Israel Putnam, who rivaled ”Mad Anthony” in brevity as well as courage. It will be remembered that Palmer was here captured as a spy. A British officer wrote a letter asking his reprieve, to which Putnam replied, ”Nathan Palmer was taken as a spy, tried as a spy and will be hanged as a spy. P. S.--He is hanged.” This was the birthplace of Paulding, one of Andre's captors, and he died here in 1818. He is buried in the old rural cemetery about two miles and a half from the village, and a monument has been erected to his memory. Near at hand is the ”Wayside Inn,” where Andre once ”tarried,” also the Hillside Cemetery, where on June 19, 1898, the 123d anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a monument was unveiled to General Pomeroy by the Society of the Sons of Revolution, New York. The church which Was.h.i.+ngton attended is in good preservation.
Near Peekskill is the old Van Cortlandt house, the residence of Was.h.i.+ngton for a short time during the Revolution. East of the village was the summer home of the great pulpit orator, Henry Ward Beecher.
Peekskill was known by the Indians as Sackhoes in the territory of the Kitchawongo, which extended from Croton River to Anthony's Nose.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTHERN GATE OF HIGHLANDS]
Turning Caldwell's Landing or Jones' Point, formerly known as Kidd's Point, almost at right angles, the steamer enters the southern gate of the Highlands. At the water edge will be seen some upright planks or caissons marking the spot where Kidd's s.h.i.+p was supposed to have been scuttled. As his history seems to be intimately a.s.sociated with the Hudson, we will give it in brief:
=The Story of Captain Kidd.=--”My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed,”
are famous lines of an old ballad which was once familiar to our grandfathers. The hapless hero of the same was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, and it is thought, near Greenock, Scotland. He resided at one time in New York, near the corner of William and Cedar Streets, and was there married. In April, 1696, he sailed from England in command of the ”Adventure Galley,” with full armament and eighty men. He captured a French s.h.i.+p, and, on arrival at New York, put up articles for volunteers; remained in New York three or four months, increasing his crew to one hundred and fifty-five men, and sailed thence to Madras, thence to Bonavista and St. Jago, Madagascar, then to Calicut, then to Madagascar again, then sailed and took the ”Quedah Merchant.” Kidd kept forty shares of the spoils, and divided the rest with his crew. He then burned the ”Adventure Galley,”
went on board the ”Quedah Merchant,” and steered for the West Indies.
Here he left the ”Merchant,” with part of his crew, under one Bolton, as commander. Then manned a sloop, and taking part of his spoils, went to Boston via Long Island Sound, and is said to have set goods on sh.o.r.e at different places. In the meantime, in August, 1698, the East Indian Company informed the Lords Justice that Kidd had committed several acts of piracy, particularly in seizing a Moor's s.h.i.+p called the ”Quedah Merchant.” When Kidd landed at Boston he was therefore arrested by the Earl of Bellamont, and sent to England for trial, 1699, where he was found guilty and executed. Now it is supposed that the crew of the ”Quedah Merchant,” which Kidd left at Hispaniola, sailed for their homes, as the crew was mostly gathered from the Highlands and above. It is said that they pa.s.sed New York in the night, _en route_ to the manor of Livingston; but encountering a gale in the Highlands, and thinking they were pursued, ran her near the sh.o.r.e, now known as Kidd's Point, and here scuttled her, the crew fleeing to the woods with such treasure as they could carry. Whether this circ.u.mstance was true or not, it was at least a current story in the neighborhood, and an enterprising individual, about fifty years ago, _caused an old cannon_ to be ”discovered” in the river, and perpetrated the first ”Cardiff Giant Hoax.” A New York Stock Company was organized to prosecute the work. It was said that the s.h.i.+p could be seen in clear days, with her masts still standing, many fathoms below the surface. One thing is certain--the company did not see it or the _treasurer_ either, in whose hands were deposited about $30,000.
Beauty and majesty on either hand Have shared thy waters with their common realm.
_Knickerbocker Magazine._
Their summits are the first to meet The morning's golden ray, And last to catch the crimson fires That warm the dying day.
_Minna Irving._
On the west sh.o.r.e rise the rock-beaten crags of--
=The Dunderberg=, the dread of the Dutch mariners. This hill, according to Irving, was peopled with a mult.i.tude of imps, too great for man to number, who wore sugar-loaf hats and short doublets, and had a picturesque way of ”tumbling head over heels in the rack and mist.” They were especially malignant toward all captains who failed to do them reverence, and brought down frightful squalls on such craft as failed to drop the peaks of their mainsails to the goblin who presided over this shadowy republic. It was the dread of the early navigators--in fact, the Olympus of Dutch mythology. Verditege Hook, the Dunderberg, and the Overslaugh, were names of terror to even the bravest skipper. The old burghers of New York never thought of making their week's voyage to Albany without arranging their wills, and it created as much commotion in New Amsterdam as a modern expedition to the north pole. Dunderberg, in most of the Hudson Guides and Maps, is put down as 1,098 feet, but its actual alt.i.tude by the latest United States Geological Survey is 865 feet.