"Cement Manufacture, Leading Industry in Southern Ulster" by Will Plank. Published August 14, 1969 in Perspective section of "Southern Ulster Pioneer" newspaper.

​Cement Manufacture, Leading Industry in Southern Ulster by Will Plank. Perspective, Southern Ulster Pioneer, August 14, 1969, part 1
The construction and development of the Delaware and Hudson canal led to the creation of Southern Ulster's greatest manufacturing industry in the 19th century --- that of the famous Rosendale cement. Considered the best cement manufactured in this country, it was used in the construction of the Brooklyn bridge, the Croton Aqueduct which supplied New York City with water, the dry-dock of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, hundreds of the city's largest buildings, and principal construction projects of the Hudson River Railroad.

During the life of the industry from 1825 to the turn of the century it led all activities on the west side of the Hudson from New Jersey to Albany, employed thousands of men in one way or another. At least a dozen plants for the manufacture of cement were in operation as well as numerous quarries and kilns for burning cement rock. The business attracted capital from New York City, Newark, Long Island and upstate, resulting in heavy investments which paid well as the demand for this favored product increased. The heyday of success in this industry was from 1870 to 1890, after which cheaper cement from Pennsylvania, the west, and Greene and Columbia counties dominated the markets and sent Rosendale black cement into decline. Produced at a greater cost, the local produce was considered superior for construction work and some mills continued to operate for the next twenty years – in fact the industry is still [1969] represented by at least one producer in the area north of Rosendale.

Thousands of local people today (1969) know little or nothing about this industry which contributed so much to the wealth and population of the county, although there are still many physical reminders of the days of its fame. Dozens of quarries and tunnels through the solid rock along Rondout Creek from Kingston to High Falls and the areas on either side, stone construction work covered by brush and weeds and occasional ruined smokestacks of once busy cement-burning kilns attest to the importance of the industry. For many years of the 20th century the yawning cavern mouths of the tunnels were an interesting tourist attraction of this region – mute witnesses of the work of men burrowing under the hillsides following the strata of cement rock which was so valuable. Today (1969) a few of these are in evidence but some of the most important ones have been closed, except for doors which give access to the tunnels which were used for years to four decades ago in the cultivation of mushrooms. The coolness of the long tunnels made them excellent for this purpose, but now the caverns are used for storage of government documents.

Canal construction work led to the discovery of cement-bearing rock in the United States. When the Erie Canal was being built hydraulic cement had to be imported from Europe for stone work under the water, but in 1818, the same type stone was discovered in Chittenango, Madison County. Use of it in making durable cement resulted in more economical construction in the completion of the canal. When the Delaware and Hudson Canal was about to be built to carry Pennsylvania's anthracite coal across Southern Ulster to deep water navigation on the Hudson at Rondout, engineers discovered the same type of cement rock at High Falls. The first was burned at a blacksmith's forge at that village, reduced to powder by pounding and when tested, proved to be of excellent quality. Thus the Ulster County hydraulic cement industry was born, and the product was used in the construction of the 14-year-old locks and bridges which excite the admiration of canal visitors today. In 1826 John Littlejohn contracted to furnish all the cement needed for the construction of the canal. In the spring of that year, he commenced quarrying, burning the grinding the cement-bearing stone and established a kiln near the Sulphur spring below High Falls. The burnt stone was hauled to the Simon DePuy grist mill and ground, thence delivered in tight wagon boxes to the places where it was to be used. When the demand for the product increased other grinding mills were erected and a good business resulted.
The industry was permitted to die after the canal work was completed, but some years later, Judge Lucas Elmendorf, for whom the Lucas Turnpike, existing today (1969) was named, saw a future in commercial manufacture of this high quality cement. He began quarrying and burning cement on land he owned a mile or so west of Rosendale on the canal, and had it crushed at the old Snyder Mill on Rondout Creek. He met with ready demand for his product and soon others followed his example. The Hoffmans began operating a plant at what became later known as Hickory Bush. They were followed by Hugh White who built extensive plants at Whiteport which took his name. He had a big contract for supplying cement for the Croton Aqueduct and had four mills in and about Whiteport.

Watson E. Lawrence may well be considered the father of the cement business, for he not only developed the business through the experimental stages, but later became one of the two principal operators. At Lawrenceville, just west of Rosendale, where his plants and the hamlet providing homes for some of his employees bore his name was one of the largest industrial plants in Ulster County. Remains of his huge kilns and stone buildings may still be seen just south of the highway between Rosendale and High Falls and an examination of the size of the kilns   gives one an idea of the size of the industry. Lawrence took over the business originally started by Lucas Elmendorf. In 1828 he made an agreement with the judge for manufacturing cement and built two kilns and a waterpower mill near Rondout Creek. Here he operated on a small scale for several years filling the limited number of orders that came in for hydraulic cement, learning from experience how to perfect his manufacturing process. Hs first kilns were small and used wood for fuel. The kilns were filled with stone, after which a fire was started at the bottom under an arch which contained the wood and allowed to burn for six days and nights by which time the cement rock was supposed to be well cooked and ready to be ground. Frequently rains and inexperienced burning caused the whole batch to come out as worthless cinders or raw stones. By this slow process of burning a week's output was not more than 25 barrels per kiln.

Other cement manufacturers in the area included the Rosendale Cement Co., one of the earliest firms operating under the guidance of Watson Lawrence, the pioneer in the industry. Another good producer was the Lawrence Cement Co. which retained the name of its founder long after it passed from his control. Although its quarries were located at Hickory Bush, its mill was established at Eddyville, where it had the advantage of tidewater navigation. Among other smaller operators was Martin and Clearwater's cement works located at Rock Locks where, like other larger plants, they operated about 250 days a year.
The Hudson River Cement Works was located on high ground half a mile from Rondout Creek and the canal near Creek Locks, where they operated six kilns burning cement rock near their quarries. The firm had its cement ground at Flatbush, and the stone was conveyed to the canal by a double-track railroad operated by gravity. The loaded cars descending to the canal provided enough impetus to carry the empty back up the grade to the quarries at little expense. Their kilns burned 80 to 90 tons of rock per day.

The Warner Lime and Cement Co. had its quarries and kilns at Hickory Bush. The burned stone was shipped to Troy, N.Y. where it was reduced to cement for northern markets.

The New York Cement Co., owned by Long Island men, had a capacity of 115,000 barrels of cement annually at its plant near LeFevre Falls, later knowns as Rock Lock. One hundred thirty men were employed at its quarries and its seven kilns which were so located as to eliminate a large working force. This firm also took advantage of its location to send its product to its mills and the barreled cement to the canal loading docks by means of a gravity railroad.

Conley and Shaffer had six kilns burning cement rock from their quarries just south of Bloomindale Reformed Church, but were handicapped by being obliged to haul their product to their mills near the mouth of the Greenkill by teams. Their mills were on the site of the old grist mills, of Smedes and DuBois who operated them at the time of the Revolution on the stream which takes its name from the color of its water.

In addition to the cement manufacturing many men were employed and fortunes were made in operating quarries for mills here or elsewhere. Quantities of desirable stone for making hydraulic cement have been found in strata twenty feet thick on both sides of Rondout Creek from south of High Falls to Eddyville. In several cases kilns were operated for burning the stone but no mills for crushing it. Most of the stone, however, was sold by individuals who owned the land and engaged men to work their quarries. Some rough land unsuited for agriculture sold at high prices because of the stone strata in the rocky hillsides. As an example 53 acres of otherwise nearly worthless land sold for $30,000. And "That ain't hay" – not in those post Civil War days!

The largest cement manufacturers, the Newark Lime and Cement Co., was actually located in the Rondout-Wilbur area, rather than the Rosendale district, but because of its importance an article about this industry would be incomplete without mentioning it. During the 1880's this was the largest industrial firm in Kingston and operated 23 kilns for burning stones, as well as mills and other buildings which made it possible to produce1200 barrels of cement daily. The strata of cement rock were worked on both sides of Rondout Creek where rich deposits in the bluffs were so close to shipping facilities by water the finished produce could be produced at minimum cost. The bluffs were honeycombed by caverns, some high up on the hillsides, others at the level of the creek and one level worked was 90 feet below tidewater. Motive power was supplied by three steam engines, one of nearly 300 horse power. A copper shop turned out 300 barrels daily and storage space was provided for 30,000 barrels of cement.

Organized in New Jersey in 1840 the company originally shipped local cement rock to Newark where it was ground.  Ten years later the demand for cement caused the company to operate at the source of supply and when the mills on Rondout Creek began running in 1851 a new era of prosperity began for the firm. For some forty years later this firm led the field in industrial activity.

The Rosendale Cement Works owned and operated by F.O. Norton of New York operated a plant at Keator's Corners where 150 or more employees were kept busy getting out about 150,000 barrels of cement annually. Two quarries were operated, one just in the rear of the mills and other nearly opposite the railroad station, from whence a narrow gauge horse railroad carried the stone to the kilns and mills for grinding. Norton was a big operator and also had well equipped cement mills at High Falls.
​
The Bruceville Cement Works was one of the early industries of its type. It was founded by Nathaniel Bruce, who operated it for many years and give his name to the settlement. In 1860, the business was taken over by James H. and Jacob D. Vandemark, who used both steam and waterpower to operate the mills which were near the kilns. At first, the firm bought its rock from other individuals who operated quarries, but later opened an extensive quarry of its own on the old Schoonmaker property.

​On May 23, 1701, my ninth-great-grandfather Captain William Kidd was gruesomely hung at the gallows at Execution Dock in Wapping, East London. The New York sea captain, who knew the Hudson (North) River and New York’s other tidal estuaries like the back of his hand, had been tried two weeks earlier at the Old Bailey on five counts of piracy and one count of premeditated murder. The crimes were allegedly committed during his 1696-1699 Indian Ocean voyage to fight the French and hunt down pirates. Although the piracy charges against the prominent New York sea commander were weak and the death of his fractious chief gunner, William Moore, was accidental when Kidd struck him with an empty wooden bucket while quelling a mutiny, it made no difference in the outcome of the trial.
The courtroom drama proved to be nothing but a sham proceeding to make an example of Kidd and protect England’s trade with the Great Mughal of India, Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir I, and the East India Company’s profitable monopoly in the region. He was swiftly convicted on all counts based on the perjured testimony of two of his mutinous seamen, both of whom served as the Crown’s star witnesses and received full pardons for their betrayal of their commander. Today, Captain Kidd is known as perhaps the most famous “pirate” of all time, but his notorious legend is built on a bed of lies and he was railroaded by a corrupt English Crown. Thus, instead of indulging in the popular mythology of a villainous cutthroat and treasure-chest burying scoundrel who never existed, we should be celebrating the heroism of this most famous New Yorker with deep Hudson River Valley roots, a man who was called the “trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd” by the King of England himself.

At the time of his high-profile public execution in 1701, the English-born Captain Kidd was not only a New York war hero in King William’s War against France (1689-1697), successful merchant ship captain, and a licensed private naval commander, or privateer, but a propertied gentleman, widely liked family man, and well-known community leader. He stood as one of the most prosperous citizens of not only he and his wife Sarah’s affluent East Ward neighborhood but all of Manhattan, which at the time had a population of 5,000 souls. His lawfully purchased New York real-estate properties included what are today some of the most expensive real estate holdings in the entire world, worth hundreds of millions of dollars: 90-92 and 119-121 Pearl Street; 52-56 Water Street; 25, 27, and 29 Pine Street; and his Saw Kill farm in Niew Haarlem at today’s 73rd Street and the East River.

For his privateering voyage to the Indian Ocean, Kidd was recruited in 1695 by a group of wealthy London financial backers, who hoped to make a bundle of money for King William III and themselves. Among them was Lord Bellomont, a powerful Whig House of Commons member and soon-to-be royal governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The plan was for Kidd to not only fight the French but to hunt down the Euro-American pirates of Madagascar, legally seize their ill-gotten riches, and keep them for not only himself and his crew but for the king and other lordly sponsors from the powerful Whig party, who would take a hefty 60% cut of the proceeds. Kidd was to capture these predators of the seas—the “Red Sea Men” as they were known at the time—and seize their freshly plundered riches after they had raided the royal treasure fleets of the Great Mughal and other East Indian shipping between the Malabar Coast of India and Mocha and Jeddah in the Red Sea. Based on the colonial New Yorker’s sterling reputation, the investment group not only issued Kidd two special government licenses but built a 34-gun warship, the Adventure Galley, to his personal specifications.

Unfortunately for Kidd, his nearly three-year-long voyage turned out to be an epic disaster and turned him overnight into a notorious criminal and media sensation. During the hellish voyage that involved biblical storms, a tropical disease outbreak that took the lives of 35 of his crewmen, and constant attacks on his ship by virtually everyone, Kidd lawfully seized two Moorish (Muslim East Indian) ships, the Rouparelle and Quedagh Merchant, that presented authentic French passports and carried gold, silver, silks, opium, and other riches of the East. However, while these wartime seizures were 100% legal and he never once himself committed piracy in the Indian Ocean, he soon thereafter looked the other way during the capture of a Portuguese merchant galliot that presented official papers of a nation friendly to England (at least marginally). His seamen sailing separately from his 34-gun Adventure Galley in the captured Rouparelle seized from the Portuguese vessel two small chests of opium, four small bales of silk, 60 to 70 bags of rice, and some butter, wax, and iron.

It was a measly haul, and if Kidd hadn’t later become such an infamous figure, few would have cared that he had turned a blind eye to his unruly sailors from a separate ship plundering a few foodstuffs from a Catholic merchant vessel crewed by Moors. However, it was technically piracy even though Kidd wasn’t directly involved in the capture. He only allowed the seizure to pacify his unruly and mutinous crew, who had by this time divided into “pirate” and “non-pirate” factions aboard his three separate privateering gunships; and in reprisal for the damage inflicted upon the Adventure Galley and serious injuries sustained by a dozen of his crewmen from two Portuguese men-of-war that had attacked him without provocation months earlier.

Despite the numerous challenges he faced during his grueling voyage and a full-scale mutiny because he refused to go all-in on piracy, Kidd miraculously made it back to the American colonies from Madagascar with around £40,000 ($14,000,000 today) of treasure in his hold and the French passports that proved he had taken the Rouparelle and Quedagh Merchant legally in accordance with his commission. However, when he and his small band of loyalists reached Antigua in the Caribbean on April 2, 1699, they received heartbreaking news. The Crown, at the urging of the East India Company, had sent an alarm to the colonies in late November 1698 declaring them pirates and ordering an all-out manhunt to capture and bring them to justice.

Kidd decided to try to present his case for his innocence and obtain a pardon from his lead sponsor in the voyage, Lord Bellomont, who had by this time taken office as the royal governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. After burying a portion of his legally obtained treasure on Gardiner’s Island in Long Island Sound and distributing a number of goods to trusted community leaders as a precautionary measure, Kidd sailed into Boston on July 3, 1699, to meet with Bellomont, who had promised him a full pardon. However, the treacherous governor had merely lured him into the Puritan stronghold: upon Kidd’s arrival, Bellomont treated him with suspicion and several days later arrested him and his seamen.

After being stripped of all his lawfully seized plunder and enduring six months of incarceration in Boston, Kidd was shipped to England to stand trial, was found guilty, and hung in public shame before a drunken, jeering mob of Londoners. Days later, his corpse was coated with tar and hoisted in a gibbeted iron cage downriver at Tilbury Point near the mouth of the Thames, where it would remain for the next twenty years to serve as the English State’s grisly warning to other would-be pirates of the fate that awaited them if they dared disrupt England’s valuable trade relations with India by pursuing the short but merry life of a marauding freebooter.

                                                                   ΨΨΨ

Today, my ancestor Captain William Kidd stands as one of the three most famous “pirates” of all time, along with Sir Henry Morgan plastered on rum bottles and Edward Thache, better known as Blackbeard. But the truth is he was no pirate at all and was most certainly not “the sinister personification of piratical wickedness” or “most fiendish pirate that ever ravaged the seven seas,” as he has been called by some melodramatic researchers over the centuries. Like so many tall tales of Captain Kidd — especially stories of barbaric cruelty, piratical villainy, and treasure chests overflowing with gold and silver buried up and down the Hudson River and Atlantic seaboard — the Kidd-as-evil-arch-pirate myth has its roots in the anti-piracy propaganda campaign of the English Crown and the East India Company.

Because England failed to arrest and capture the most dastardly and successful pirate of the day, the Englishman Henry Every, the authorities made the colonial American Kidd out to be a Public Enemy #1, even though William III and his powerful Whig leaders in England had commissioned the privateer commander in the first place. Kidd’s biggest crime was disrupting England’s enormously lucrative East Indian trade. Because he followed in the wake of Henry Every during his 1696-1699 Indian Ocean voyage to hunt down pirates, the English State and its largest corporate monopoly launched a massive public relations smear campaign, spinning countless Treasure Island-like yarns of a brutal and mean-spirited Kidd, because they were unable to capture the real pirate Every and needed a scapegoat.

Over the centuries, Captain Kidd has come to define the “pirate” brand even though he was never actually a pirate. In his own lifetime he was a global sensation, and his fame has endured for more than 320 years and shows no sign of letting up. The wildly inflated estimates of his buried treasure have been a huge part of his allure over the centuries and they continue to fuel treasure hunters all over the globe, but they do not explain his longevity as an American icon and his exalted position as a favorite of Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. His unique and captivating life story, his moral ambiguity, and his unfair trial in London have also played a huge role in this most famous New Yorker’s enduring popularity.

                                                                 ΨΨΨ

What continues to make Captain Kidd important today is not merely his remarkable rags-to-riches-back-to-rags story but how many people were profoundly affected by his actions and how entrenched his myth has become in popular culture. In Kidd’s own day, he was a luminary of the media and popular culture, the hot topic of “the courtrooms and coffee shops of New York, Boston, London, and India.” He rose to fame, and later infamy, while rubbing elbows with an unbelievably vast network of shipmates, friends, family members, colonial officials, and esteemed peers of the realm, ranging from ordinary seamen, to wealthy merchants and royal governors, to the most powerful English lords of the late seventeenth century.

But what many people don’t know is that Captain Kidd made his mark in America along the Hudson River and that he has deep roots in the Hudson River Valley as a result of American folklore. On two separate occasions in mid-March of 1691, the duly commissioned New York privateer sailed his 16-cannon gunship Antigua from New York Harbor westward around the southern tip of Manhattan, anchored a quarter mile up the Hudson River, and threatened to unleash a blistering fire upon Fort William with his 12-pounders. The fort was occupied by Jacob Leisler, the leader of Leisler’s Rebellion, and his provincial militia, who had seized power from the rightful English government and taken over the city. The fifty-year-old merchant, militia captain, and ultraorthodox Calvinist Protestant of German extraction had capitalized on the unsettled state of affairs in New York in response to the 1688-1689 Glorious Revolution, the ongoing political struggle in Europe between Protestants and Catholics over the English throne that had sent several American colonies into disarray.

On March 17, Captain Kidd forced Leisler’s militiamen to abandon the blockhouse by training his heavy guns on the fort in a raging storm from his upriver position on the Hudson. The next day, he personally ferried the incoming English governor, Richard Sloughter, from Sandy Hook into New York City to assume office and replace the “usurper” Leisler; and on March 19, he again threatened Leisler from the Hudson with his big carriage guns, forcing the tyrannical leader and his army in the fort’s garrison to ground arms and march out. Thanks to Kidd, the leader of the two-year rebellion and his top lieutenants were promptly arrested and tossed into the fort’s prison.

Captain Kidd also played a pivotal role in the building of sacred Trinity Church overlooking the Hudson River. To assist with the construction of the Anglican house of worship in 1696, Kidd lent his runner and tackle from his privateering ship Adventure Galley as a pulley system to help the workers hoist the stones. In return for his community service, Kidd was given Pew Number 4 in the original church, located right up front near the rector and which bore the nameplate inscription “Captain Kidd—Commanded ‘Adventure Galley.’” Unfortunately, the gentlemanly New York privateer would never get the opportunity to pray at the magnificent church he helped build in the New World, but his wife Sarah and daughters Elizabeth and little Sarah would. As one of New York City’s greatest links to its historic past, the latest incarnation of legendary Trinity Church stands today in the exact same spot where Captain Kidd lent his runner and tackle over 330 years ago. Fittingly, Captain Kidd’s wife Sarah is buried today in the churchyard of Trinity Church looking out on the mighty Hudson.

But Captain Kidd’s greatest Hudson River connection comes from his buried treasure mythology. The legend of the colorful outlaw and swaggering pirate, with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of buried treasure still to be found in the northeastern U.S. and throughout the world, began soon after his grisly hanging at Wapping. However, it was the buried-treasure myths in Hudson River Valley lore that by the early nineteenth century secured his place in the pantheon of American folk heroes as our maritime Kit Carson and Jesse James. It is in the Hudson River Valley of authors Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, both of whom were obsessed with Kidd, where his cultural legacy began and where it continues to resonate in unusual ways.

In the 1820s, American newspapers published stories claiming that Captain Kidd had constructed a subterranean hideout in Kiddenhooghten, New York, or “Kidd Heights” along the banks of the Hudson near Dutch Albany, where he stashed away fifty boxes of gold for a rainy day. By mid-century, the myths of his vast hidden caches of gold and jewels had spurred treasure-hunting expeditions from Maryland to Nova Scotia. Fortune hunters claimed to have discovered these long-buried troves of treasure in virtually every state along the Eastern Seaboard, with gold and silver literally washing up on the shores of the Hudson. Others reported to have found sealed bottles containing letters and treasure maps scratched out by Kidd himself. At this time, several companies began scouring the lower Hudson River Valley for Captain Kidd’s lost treasure and his undiscovered fortune became linked with the supernatural.

For the past two hundred years, treasure hunters have claimed an occult connection to the privateer. “Scholars have well established that the prevalent use of folk magic and divining practices in New York and the New England states for the search of buried treasure was motivated by Captain Kidd’s legend.” When one reads the countless tales of Captain Kidd’s unrecovered treasure from the nineteenth-century to the present day—featuring treasure chests guarded by headless men, guardian dogs with red eyes, monster horses, enormous crows, and magical rings that deflect bullets—one cannot help but wonder if all this insanity is my ancestor’s revenge for the miscarriage of justice that brought him to his inglorious demise at Wapping in 1701.

To this day, Captain Kidd stands as one of the most well-known, popular, and controversial figures in world history, with countless books, short stories, articles, ballads, and songs written about him, as well as rock bands, pubs, restaurants, streets, and hotels named after him. There are a large number of websites on the man and the myth, including more than a few with helpful tips on where plucky treasure hunters can find his long-lost fortune. In the U.S. alone, legend still places buried chests of Captain Kidd’s treasure in not only New York’s Hudson River Valley but in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

However, Captain Kidd’s contribution to history is not limited to his romantic myth of the flamboyant pirate, or his treasure rumored to be scattered throughout the Hudson River Valley and all over the world. More important is his role in planting the seeds of rebellion against the English Crown that would grow into a full-fledged revolution by 1776. Kidd was not merely a leading New Yorker who helped build Trinity Church, the latest incarnation of which still stands proudly today on Wall Street and Broadway, nor was he just a courageous privateer commander in King William’s War against France and important member of America’s first unofficial Coast Guard. His story—as much as any other between the settling of Jamestown and the American Revolution—symbolized defiance against the English Crown and its Navigation Acts.

The spectacular irony is that Captain Kidd has won a posthumous victory over his English foes who publicly shamed, tried, and hung him for the crimes of Henry Every and the other true Red Sea pirates. The same powerful forces that humiliated and destroyed the American colonial have made him a staple of popular culture and sanctified his historical legacy in a way he never could have imagined. For today, Captain Kidd remains every bit as popular, puzzling, and controversial as he was four centuries ago. The delicious irony of my ninth-great-grandfather, of course, is that, as legendary historian Philip Gosse declared over a century ago, the greatest pirate of all time was “no pirate at all.”
​
Instead, he was the consummate New York “Gent” and war hero of the Hudson.

1860-06-07 Yonkers Statesman; Race between New Daniel Drew and Armenia, ts CM
The New Albany Day Boat. — The new steamer Daniel Drew took her place on the day line, on Tuesday morning last. On the morning previous, by special arrangement, an amicable trial of speed was had between the [Daniel] Drew and the old and favorite steamer Armenia, which resulted in the defeat of the latter. The race was from the Christopher street dock at New York to Newburgh. The Armenia retained the lead she had on starting until after passing this village [Yonkers], when the Drew took the first position, and maintained it until the arrival at the end of the course, coming in the winner by seven minutes. The down trip from Albany yesterday was made in eight hours and twenty minutes. We trust that the bright and prosperous career which has just dawned, will long continue. She is commanded by Capt. John Tallman, long and favorably known to the traveling community.

Rockland County Messenger (Haverstraw, N. Y.), March 27, 1851
Steam Ferry Boat. The Minisceongo Ferry Company's Boat arrived here this week, from the East, where she was purchased. She is a pretty looking craft, and neatly fitted up, having a splendid saloon. She is to run from this village via Grassy Point, and from thence
across the river to met the Hudson River Railroad, which will be a great accommodation
to the travelling community.

​Tired from the toil of the trip [from Philadelphia, through New Jersey] and having
formed some acquaintances in New York, I thought I would visit Boston and then return
to New York, whence I would embark for England.  The harshness of the winter held me
suspended for some time and finally made me change the plan.  The sound and the
rivers remained frozen for a long time, obstructing all navigation, and the roads,
although covered with snow, became impassable with the frequent thaws -- neither
sledge nor wheels could attempt them.  So I decided to remain here until the weather
improved and I moved to better lodging, at Maiden Lane No. 9, the home of Mr.
Ellsworth and an excellent private inn, paying seven pesos fuertes weekly (not including
fire and liquor) for myself.  The servant I had brought from Philadelphia, who was
obligated to serve me for two and a half years, escaped a few days after my arrival
here.  I had bought him for ten guineas in Philadelphia, on board an Irish ship bearing a
cargo of more than three hundred male and female slaves.  John Dean (his name) was
born in Scotland and was about sixteen years old; he seemed to me honest and without
mischievousness, but the event proved the contrary.

On the twentieth of February I set out on another foray, this one to West Point, with the intention of seeing this celebrated place and the neighboring areas, scenes of military actions in the recent war.  At two o'clock in the afternoon, provided with letters of recommendation given me by Governor Clinton, my friend Colonel Hamilton, General McDougall, Mr. Parker, etc., I started out on my sledge, accompanied by Cornet Taylor.  At three o'clock we reached the country house of Colonel Robert Morris, ten miles from New York, one of the handsomest and most pleasing of its type that I have seen in America, as much for its location as for the neatness and taste with which it was built.  Two miles farther are Land Hill and Laurel Hill, where we stopped and climbed up to Fort Washington, situated on the former, where I had the pleasure of viewing again
the famous British lines I have mentioned.  Three miles ahead we crossed Kings Bridge,
and traveling another mile, we arrived at Courtland House, where we were very well
received and were lodged for the night of the General and her two younger sons,
       
Early in the morning we sallied forth and, covering the distance of fourteen miles
over extremely broken and hilly ground, reached White Plains, where we had breakfast
in a small tavern, the only house remaining there, and then proceeded to visit the posts
and positions of the American and British armies that operated on said ground in
September, 1776.  
       
Four miles farther is another small river, the Sawmill, over which there is a wooden bridge, and one mile farther the small town of Tarrytown, on the North River.  On the highway near Tarrytown is a large tree marking the spot where Major André was arrested by three young, rustic militiamen, an incident that produced so much clatter afterwards.  From there they took him to New Salem, ten miles distant, and thence to West Point, ten miles farther on.  Nine miles from Tarrytown is New Bridge, a well-built wooden structure over the Croton River, the waters of which are quite abundant.  Here we ate middlingly in a rural tavern  and, following our route on a road that is everywhere broken, hilly, and covered with rocks, at sunset reached Peekskill, a village of some twenty or thirty small houses on the North River ten miles farther on.  Here we came upon a mediocre tavern and a most comical scene between a squire of the locality, a justice of the peace, and a drunk who thrust himself into the tavern and insulted them in a thousand ways.  Nobody dared to restrain or throw him out, notwithstanding said insulted personages comprised the police of the town and manifested a desire to do so.
       
The next day we continued our journey over the ice of the North River, the surface of which had the appearance of a very handsome and polished lamina.  The ice must have been two feet thick, and the snow on top of this one and a half feet; we did not have the least misgivings about danger, for, although it has broken many times in those places where the wind introduces itself between the surface of the water and the mass of ice, the way was already so beaten with the multitude of sledges which came and went on the river that there was no basis for the least care.  I assure you ingenuously that this entire spectacle seemed to me one of the strangest one can see in nature.  Both shores of the river are extremely elevated and the surface of its waters quite extensive, so that to look at the height of the mountains while one is traveling on the river, or, on the other hand, to observe from the heights the carriages on the ice, is a magnificent and extraordinary scene; the objects look so small in the midst of these majestic strokes of mature that the sledge and horses seemed to me the playthings of a child drawn by a pair of lap dogs.
       
At ten o'clock in the morning we arrived at West Point and directed our steps to
the tavern there, without anybody investigating or caring to know who the newly arrived
strangers were -- one of the most pleasant circumstances enjoyed in a free country. 
 At eleven o'clock, after a second breakfast, Mr. Taylor and I went to visit the commander of the post, to whom we presented our credentials and who received us with the greatest hospitality and attention, obliging us to take lodging in his own house.  [They tour the facility.]

From here we ascended the near-by mountain which commands Fort Clinton and
the plain in which is located the main buildings, that is, the quarters, the house of the
commandant, store houses, etc.; there I saw Fort Putnam (also takes its name from the
colonel who began its construction), which follows Fort Clinton in solidity and strength,
although it is much smaller, and is the work of the American General Kosciusko, a Pole
by birth, who came to this continent at the time of the revolution.  A series of mountains
which mutually dominate one another make these positions seem very precarious
defenses, to which one adds that the productions of art in fortifying them are neither
ingenious nor of much soundness.
       
Having finished the visit of all these positions, we retired, around three o'clock to
the house of the commander, Colonel Hull, who gave us a good meal.  In the evening
we enjoyed the company of the ladies of the garrison, who, because of the
novelty of foreigners, came to have tea with Mrs. Hull.

The next day, after breakfast, we resumed our military visit . . . , ascending the mountain with no little difficulty and toil, for it is quite high and perpendicular and was covered with snow and ice, we reached Points No. 1, 2, 3, and 4, in a circumference of five miles around the entire post.  These are still more redoubts, the ramparts of which can barely support light artillery.  A series of commanding grounds surrounding this post have produced such a number of weak advance works that the higher parts, which ought to be the strongest, are the weakest.

Our visit this day ended at a wooden blockhouse on the river, very well built and the most advanced work in that part, and at three-thirty, not a little tired, we reached the lgyodging of Major of Artillery Doughty, who gave us a very good meal.  In the evening we
drank tea and had supper at the house of the artillery commander, Major Bauman, who
likewise treated us very well.

Early the next day we crossed the river in a sledge and visited the fortifications on Constitution Island, which consist of three very strong redoubts (very well built and
located in dominant places) protecting the great chain and the passage of the river in
that spot.  We made an observation there: cutting the ice in the middle of the channel,
we found it to be two and a half feet thick.  We crossed the river to the location called
the Ferry and, ascending a mountain extremely high and difficult of access, visited
North and South Forts, medium redoubts located in very dominant places; from them an
immense prospectus over vast lands and the North River is revealed. 

At the foot of these heights and two miles from West Point is the house of
General McDougall (formerly of Colonel Robinson), and here we alighted at three
o'clock.  His son the Colonel, at the time the only one there, gave us a very good meal;
certainly the best apples I have ever tasted, I ate there that day (called pippins, and
those of this area are very special). 
       
West Point is the most advantageous position that could be selected to cut off the
navigation of the river, because, in addition to the narrowness of the latter at that spot, it
turn it makes forces every vessel to shift sails and consequently reduce its speed, at
which time the obstacles and batteries already mentioned can destroy it very easily.  An
attack upon the post by land would have been of more probable success, but, as the
army always maintained such a position of coming to its aid in case of necessity, this
was not possible either.  The location is extremely romantic and majestic in the higher
parts.  Butter Hill, contiguous to it, rises twelve hundred feet above the surface of the
river.  One also sees from West Point the Catskill Mountains, the highest in this part of
the continent.
  
Early on the twenty-sixth, after a light breakfast, we started out on our return to
New York by way of Jersey, with the intention of seeing the Passaic cascade.  Major
Doughty, Mr. Taylor and I accommodated ourselves very well in two sledges and went
down the river over the ice, like lightning.  Five miles from West Point, on the west bank,
are the ruins of Fort Montgomery and on the opposite bank, the extremity called
Anthony's nose, upon which had been fixed a chain in order to cut off the navigation of
the river, protected by said fort, the loss of which resulted in the Americans forming the
idea of fortifying and establishing West Point.
       
Continuing our Laplandish route over the ice, we arrived at Verplancks Point,
seven miles farther down, where we went on land.  Going about two miles, we reached
Kings Ferry, opposite Stony Point, where there is a redoubt, capacious and very well
built (perhaps the best I have even seen of its kind), called Lafayette.  Also in this
vicinity is the encampment the American and French armies occupied in 1782 upon
their withdrawal from Virginia, after the capture of Cornwallis, etc.

From Kings Ferry we crossed the river over the ice, with no slight misgiving, for in some places the water penetrated and the ice was known to be quite thin, but comforting us were a good guide we had in front and stick in the hand to support ourselves should our feet open a large hole.  So we all crossed on foot, sending before us the sledge and horses for greater safety.  The river in this spot is something more than a mile wide.  In a poor tavern there we found some fresh fish (just caught in the river through a hole made for this purpose in the ice), from which we asked them to prepare something to eat while we visited the place.
       
Stony Point is on the west bank of the North River, exactly in front of Fort Lafayette, and is by its shape and location one of the most advantageous positions for fortifications that nature has formed.  It completely commands what ground there is within (p. 91) the reach of cannon and by its configuration naturally flanks all the avenues by which it can be attacked.  So with very little help from art one can erect there the strongest fortification that can be imagined.  At present there is only a small fort of earth and wood there, which was what the Americans reduced it to after having taken it and ruined its fortifications, but one still sees very distinctly the lines, moats, etc. of these as they were built by the British, and I assure you ingenuously that, having examined them well and meditated upon the matter, I cannot conceive how the operation of the capture was effected, and with such little cost.  The garrison consisted of eight hundred well-regulated troops, a number sufficient for its defense.  We should not resort to the subterfuge of saying they were taken by surprise, knowing that the advance posts gave the alarm in time and fired upon the attacking American parties.  The strength of the latter amounted in all to twelve hundred men, selected and led by General Wayne.
       
The losses were sixty dead and forty wounded on the part of the British, thirty dead and seventy wounded for the Americans. These circumstances leave me in no doubt that this was one of the most brilliant feats of its kind one can find in military history.  Our military investigations completed, we returned to the tavern, where we found the meal we had ordered already prepared with the addition of potatoes, good butter, and abundant cider.  Our appetites were well disposed and so we are grandly, in the country style.  Soon afterward we took to the road, for it was already two o'clock.  Our friends and companions recrossed the river, to take their sledge (which had remained in Fort Lafayette) and return to West Point; Mr. Taylor and I took ours and continued our journey to Passaic Falls.
       
About two miles farther on, near the riverbank, is the house of Mr. Smith, where Major André stopped off and held his final conference with General Arnold, it is quite capacious, new, and of good architecture.  Three miles further on we found the small town of Haverstraw, situated exactly on the bank of the North river, where we noticed an enormous quantity of firewood; this was to be sent to New York whenever the ice should desist and permit the navigation of the river, because so great a shortage was being experienced there that a cartload of firewood was worth twenty or thirty pesos.  We continued seven miles to Clarkstown, which has about fifteen houses in its vicinity; here we stopped to give food to the horses and warm ourselves a bit, for the cold pressed upon us like a demon.  As darkness came, having traveled seven miles farther, we reached Orangetown (some call it Tappan, from the name of the district), the inhabitants of which are contained in sixteen houses.  We spent the night in a Dutch inn there.
       
Here one can see the position where the American army was encamped in 1781 where the unfortunate André was hanged.  I have seen the room where he was imprisoned, people who gave him assistance, and the site of the execution.  His body was buried at the foot of the gallows, and his sepulcher remains there, with two ordinary flat stones without inscription or mark indicating the least remembrance of his fame.  I do not doubt, having examined the matter thoroughly and gathered the most authentic information, that the plan of the project which led him to the mentioned punishment was his production entirely, based on the intimate friendship he had formed in Philadelphia with Mrs. Arnold (then Miss Shippen), which channel seemed to him, and without doubt was, the most suitable for managing the conspiracy.  The result revealed very clearly that he did not lack ability for closet machination and intrigue, but at the same time lets us know he was not the man for its execution, for he did not have that presence of mind which is indispensable for handling critical moments.  The way that Arnold played his role (that is, knowing through a letter that André had been arrested, he escaped, without the loss of a moment, from the midst of all his enemies, over a million hazards) forms a quite singular and characteristic contrast of the temper and spirit of both men. 

​May 28, 1784.  At five thirty in the afternoon, I set sail from Albany Pier, New York, on the sloop Schuyler, Captain Willet, for Albany.  The passengers were two Frenchmen, three American men, and two American women of fairly good manners and not unsociable.  With a lazy wind from the south we went up the North River and passed several delightful and very well situated country houses, outstanding among them those of Mr. Lespenard, Mr. Montier, Mr. Eliot, Mr. W. Bayard, Mr. Oliver DeLancey, etc.  The wind having changed to the north, we cast anchor in Tappan Bay, thirty-six miles from New York, at seven o'clock in the morning.
        [
May] 29.  We remained here the entire day, with the sole recourse of our small
society and some books, for the wind was blowing too strongly for us to venture to
disembark for a walk on land.
       
[May] 30.  The wind having calmed a bit, we set sail at four o'clock in the morning and, aided by the tide, arrived at eight o'clock at Haverstraw, four miles farther on, where it was necessary for us to drop anchor again, the wind having increased too much.  Around nine-thirty most of us went on land and took a good walk.  The Frenchman and I ate in a poor but clean tavern, and I had an adventure with a shepherdess in the manner of the shepherd Phido, but with greater success.  The wind having fallen and the tide rising in our favor, we set sail at four o'clock, in the afternoon.  At the setting of the sun we were off Stony Point and Fort Lafayette, helped by the tide. for the wind was adverse; thus we passed Peekskll and finally reached Horse Race, where we anchored at eleven o'clock, six miles up river from where we had set sail.
       
[May] 31.  At seven-thirty in the morning we set sail with a lazy wind from the north and at ten o'clock anchored about a mile farther up, in front of a beautiful cascade created by nature on the east bank.  We disembarked to take a walk with the ladies and in the shade of the trees had a colloquy somewhat gallant and amorous.  At four o'clock we set sail with the current and at the setting of the sun passed Fort Montgomery opposite Anthonys Nose.  At nine o'clock we passed by Buttermilk Falls, one mile from West Point on the West Bank, and by all the works of this post, Constitution Island, etc., having travelled seven miles.  Here we came upon a fresh wind from the south, with which we soon reached the spot they call Blowing Hole (for the reason that the wind always blows here extraordinarily).  This point is the limit of the Highlands, six miles from West Point.  Three miles up river on the east bank is the town of New Windsor, and a little before the chevaux-de-frise, in front of Polopels Island, of the same type as those on the Delaware.  Here we were becalmed, and with the tide and a light wind we continued, passing the town of Newburgh about two miles farther, exactly on the bank, and two miles farther on the opposite bank, the town of Fishkill, where we anchored at three o'clock in the morning.
       
June 1.  At eight o'clock we set sail with a lazy wind from the south, passing the town of Poughkeepsie, twelve miles up river on the east bank; at eleven, Davis Store, Livingstons Store, Duers Distillery, Shenks Mills, North's Store, and various other buildings on one or the other bank.  Here we drank the river water, exceedingly good and drinkable.  Continuing up river, six miles farther on the west bank is Devoes Ferry; farther ahead, Esopus Island; eight miles ahead, Esopus Creek; ten miles farther, Mudlane Island (to the left of the river, in the interior of the continent, are the high Catskills, part of the Allegheny Mountains); two miles farther, Red Hook Landing and Island; one mile farther, Tory Livingston House, on the east bank; on the same bank two miles farther, Widow Livingston House and Manor; four miles ahead, West Camp and East Camp, two small towns opposite each other on the banks of the river, founded by Germans; four miles up river, Livingston Upper Manor and House; four miles farther, Claverack and Lansingburgh Landing Places, the former on the east, the latter on the west bank; eight miles farther on the east bank, the remarkable Kinderhook Landing Place, nine miles up river, Coeyman's Overslaugh, a bar which not vessel drawing more than nine feet an pass; nine miles up river, Upper Overslaugh, another
bar, which at high tide only has seven and a half feet of water; here we cast anchor at
two o'clock in the morning, because it was dark and we could not see the pickets which
serve as marks.
       
June 2.  At four o'clock in the morning, the day already bright, we set sail and half an hour later tied up at the Albany wharves three miles up river on the east bank.  Half a mile from Albany is the house of Mr. Henry Cuylar, large and of good architecture; on the opposite bank and almost in front is that of General Schuyler, better in every respect.  In the northern extreme of the town, also on the river, is another famous house (not as well situated as the two previous ones, but larger), belonging to Mr. Stephen Van Rensselaer.  After disembarking, I took a long walk through the city in the company of Dr. Eliot, one of the passengers, and then obtained lodging at the Hollenbake Inn.

[June] 3.  At three o'clock in the afternoon I left Albany, with my servant, on two very good horses rented for two pesos daily.  The weather was very good and the road so pleasant that it was with the greatest delight I continued my journey on the banks of the North River as far as the spot where the Mohawk River joins its waters, about seven miles from Albany.  From here I traveled over the banks of the Mohawk to Cohoes Falls, five miles farther up, where I arrived at five o'clock.  The grasses of the fields exuded such an aromatic odor, the forests presented a sight so fertile, the grains and other crops appeared so beautiful and luxuriant, and the land so rich that I thought I was in Puerto Rico, Cuba, or part of our American continent.  The entire region is middlingly populated, and proportionately there is sufficient agriculture, but the inhabitants seem to be poor.  The women commonly walk without shoes, and the number of Negroes is large.  The latter and the whites speak Dutch generally, so that the traveler imagines himself in the middle of a Dutch colony.
When I saw this very famous cascade I confess it surprised me and gave me such contentment as few objects in nature have produced in my spirit.  The height of the falls is about 40 varas [OED: A linear measure used in Spain, Portugal, and Spanish America, of
varying length in different localities, but usually about 33 inches long; a Spanish yard. and the width about 220, but this is not all that forms its beauty; the play of the waters among the irregularities of the rock and the harmony, union, and aggregate of the whole give it an
air of majesty and symmetry exceeding what the mind can conceive without having
seen it first.  Various other effects contribute to embellish the object; some of them is the
rainbow the rays of the sun form in the particles of water floating in the atmosphere
thereabout.  Having examined all this very well and admiring more each time the land
on the banks of this river, the most fertile and luxuriant region of all North America, I
rested a little in a house nearby, where two country girls gave me the freshest water to
drink and very good conversation.  It is a peculiar thing that almost all the inhabitants of
this region speak both Dutch and English!
       
At seven o'clock in the evening I arrived at Half Moon (the river forms exactly this figure there) on the banks of the North River, where I took lodging at the home of the widow Pepples.  Here I had very good tea, supper, etc., and a conversation with the daughter of said widow, about sixteen years old, to whom I offered to send some books from New York.
       
[June] 4.  At seven thirty in the morning I sallied forth, continuing on the west bank of the North River.  At four miles are the mills for sawing wood called Funday's Mills, and three miles farther the stream they call Stillwater, or Palmer's Mills, the former because here one begins to feel the rapidity of the current of the river, the latter for some mills for sawing wood, like the preceding ones.  It is incredible the quantity of sawed wood one sees, all the distance from Albany, upon this river on rafts, by means of which they transport the wood to New York at very little cost.