Editor's Note: This article is from the Hudson River Maritime Museum archives. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper August 21, 1886.

A Day in the "American Trosachs"

The appellation of the "American Trosachs" has been bestowed upon that lromantic region of river, mountain and lake lying west of the Lower Hudson River, in the States of New York and New Jersey, on account of the resemblance of its natural features to those of the famous Trosachs of Scotland, where are laid the scenes of Scott's "Lady of the Lake." The convenient and charming "round trip" which has been arranged by Mr. John N. Abbott, General Passenger Agent of the Erie Railway, will serve to make the beauties of this region accessible to a large portion of the public who have hitherto known it only by reputation.

Leaving New York city by the day steamer, at nine o'clock in the morning, the tourist enjoys a sail of sixty miles up the Hudson River, passing its chief points of historic and scenic interest – the old forts of the Revolution, the Palisades, Tappan Zee, Stony Point, West Point and the Highlands, with Storm King Mountain, 1,529 feet high, standing at their northern gate.

At Newburgh, which is reached at noon, time is allowed for a brief visit to Washington's Headquarters, before the departure of the on-o'clock train on the Erie Railway for Greycourt. From here the route is continued to Warwick over the Lehigh and Hudson Railroad. This railroad ride, occupying altogether an hour and twenty minutes, unfolds a superb panorama of the Shawangunk and Schunemunk Mountains.

From Warwick there is a stage ride of nearly two hours, over the Bellevale Mountain to Point Peter, at the head of Greenwood Lake. This lovely sheet of water is the Loch Katrine of the American Trosachs. It presents equal attractions to the artist and sportsman, and its bass-fishing is celebrated.

After an hour's stop here, the tourist takes the lake steamer to the point where the lake is intersected midway by the State boundary line between New York and New Jersey.

At this point railroad travel is resumed, the train of the New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad leaving the lake at 5:45 p.m., and arriving in New York at 7:40 in the evening.

​Thus the entire trip is made inside of twelve hours; or, reversing it, one can leave the city at 4 p.m., stop overnight at Greenwood Lake, and, reaching Newburgh in time to connect with the day-line steamer at 2:15 p.m., arrive in New York at half-past five. The fare for the round trip, in either direction, is only $3; and it may be questioned if there is in all the world another day's excursion which can rival this one, either in price or in the pleasure afforded.

FLIERS OF THE OLD DAYS: FAMOUS RACES ON THE HUDSON RIVER COURSE.
HOW THE SWALLOW BEAT THE ROCHESTER — COMMODORE VANDERBILT'S COSTLY BLUNDER — LIQUOR, OIL, AND FURNITURE USED AS FUEL.
With what emotions of interest some of the old steamboat Captains of the Hudson River would come out of their graves to observe the forthcoming race between those modern marvels of speed, the steam yachts Vamoose and Norwood, can easily be guessed. In the old days, when the Hudson River was practically the only highway between New-York and Canada and the West, it was the scene of many a race as exciting as any that ever occurred on the Mississippi. While the Mississippi Captain would boldly venture to take a short cut across the grass if there had been a heavy dew that morning, the Hudson River Captain would not hesitate to flash through rocky channels, and no risk was too great with victory at stake. 

The first of the great races of bygone days on the Hudson was that between the Swallow and the Rochester. The former was designed by Anthony N. Hoffman, and was the type of all modern boats of her class — that is to say, of all boats that are sharp both fore and aft. She was built in 1836 at the yard of Copes & Burtis, on Wallabout Bay, Williamsburg.

There were at this time two great rival New-York and Albany steamboat organizations on the Hudson, the one known as the Hudson River Steamboat Association, controlled by Mr. Hoffman, and the other, known then as now as the People’s Line, controlled by Daniel Drew. The Hudson River Steamboat Association was composed of several steamboat owners whose interests were combined for mutual profit. The steamers which belonged to the association in the order in which they were built, down to the time of the creation of the famous Swallow, were as follows:
The North America, which had a double engine and one walking-beam on either aide. She was under the command of Capt. Lathrop and was controlled by Robert L. Stevens.

The Albany, also owned by Robert L. Stevens, and commanded by Capt. Joseph E. Jenkins.

The De Witt Clinton, owned by Robert Dunlap of Albany.

The Empire, owned and controlled by Le Grand B. Cannon the elder, Richard P. Hart, and others.

The Troy, owned by the same persons.

The Swallow, designed and owned by Anthony N. Hoffman, and launched in July, 1836. She made a trial trip to Albany, but was found to be a trifle too short. The boat did not “stand up well" in the water, and Copes & Burtis added twenty-five feet to her length.

The Swallow was the first clipper steamboat ever built. When her model was first exhibited at the office of Mr. Hoffman, it aroused no small degree of ridicule, and the general prophecy was to the effect that such a shape would never produce a high rate of speed under any circumstances, no matter what the engine power might be. After the Swallow had been lengthened, it was put on the regular route between New-York and Albany, and was thereafter, and until the appearance of the Rochester, the undisputed crack of the river, and was the wonder of the age, its speed being regarded as phenomenal.

Anthony N. Hoffman, designer of the Swallow, then had his office at 71 Dey Street, corner of Washington Street, this city. Mr. Hoffman was born in 1780, at Upper Red Hook Landing, Tivoli-on-the Hudson, and became connected with Robert Fulton through his association with Edward P. Livingston of Clermont, the neighboring town. Fulton had married Livingston’s daughter, and it was through her that he obtained the money that enabled him to pursue his experiments in applying steam to navigation that finally led him to success and enduring fame. Hoffman became Fulton’s secretary at the request of the latter, and was closely connected with him during his association with the Hudson River Steamboat Association, and assumed the business after his death, which occurred in 1815. Besides the Swallow, Hoffman controlled the Independence, the Constitution, the Constellation, and the Ohio. The Independence was afterward withdrawn from the Hudson, and was run from New-York to Amboy, N. J. It was sunk at Jersey City in 1822. All of these boats had cross-head engines, and the Ohio boasted of two smoke-stacks.

Daniel Drew did not relish the idea of holding second place in Hudson River steamboat navigation. He wanted to own the fastest boat on the river and enjoy the prestige and patronage incident thereto. Wallabout Bay was lined with private shipyards in those days, and thither Drew repaired in search of a firm that could build a faster boat than the Swallow. The old man had plenty of money, and he promised a liberal share of it for a boat that could beat the Swallow. Smith & Dimon undertook the task, and in 1837 the Rochester, built on the Swallow’s lines, was launched and added to the People’s Line, the boats of which started from the foot of Liberty Street. The Captain of the Swallow was Alexander McLean and that of the Rochester was A. P. St. John.

From the appearance of the Rochester, the hot rivalry between it and the Swallow began, and was constantly kept up. They raced regularity. The Swallow always enjoyed a slight advantage by reason of the fact that its pier was one block above that of the Rochester, thus enabling it to get out into the current first. Both boats started for Albany every other day at 5 o'clock P. M. This was before the introduction of coal as fuel, and wood alone was burned. The water front was not so valuable or as thickly settled then as now, and for twenty to thirty blocks along West Street the docks were piled high with cord wood, which was carried on board the steamers without being sawed or split and there piled on deck. The Swallow carried the United States mails, and, as this privilege went to the fastest boat, it furnished another incentive for racing.

The first race, between the Swallow and the Rochester, excited much interest. There was a great crowd at the docks. The pilots of the boats watched each other with the eyes of a hawk to discover the first signal given to the engineers to start, and there were men on deck to yell to the engineers at the least move of the walking beams, so that it was impossible for the Rochester to get out ahead of the Swallow and thus make an advantageous start. The boats started together, amid cheers from the crowd on shore. The regular stops on the way to Albany for both boats were Cornwall, West Point, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, Rhinebeck, Hudson, Coxsackie, and Kinderhook. Up the river went the Swallow and the Rochester side by side, the people running along the shore in a vain effort to keep up, and as soon as the boats got fairly under way, gangs of men appeared on deck and began to saw and cut wood.

But cut as fast as they could, the gang on the Rochester could not feed the furnace enough to send their boat ahead of the Swallow, and they went side by side to Caldwell’s Landing, a distance of forty miles, and at that bend in the river the Swallow slowly took the lead. Then was there excitement on the Rochester, and barrels of sperm oil were rolled out and the oil drawn out into five-gallon cans, which were thrown into the furnace. On board the Swallow the same thing was done, and one five gallon package after another was converted into speed, with the result of voluminous clouds of dense smoke from the funnels, which obscured everything in the wake of the racers.

The Swallow gradually increased her lead, and was two miles in advance at Newburg, having covered the distance, sixty-four miles, in 3 hours and 5 minutes. This was at the rate of over twenty miles per hour, and that time has never been much improved on, even at the end of half a century of progress in fast steam navigation.

A favorite point for observing the races between the Swallow and the Rochester was what was then Burnham’s Mansion House, on the Hudson, near the foot of the present Seventy-fifth Street. There it was no uncommon thing for thousands to congregate. At every landing on the river, also, there were crowds, and often cannon[s] were fired, bells rung, and colored lights sent up. Each boat carried hundreds of passengers on every trip, and many were the distinguished citizens of that generation who thus participated in those exciting races. The steamers were shoved out from the docks in New-York and from every landing with long poles, and as soon as the Swallow got ahead of the Rochester, the crew of the former would wrap the ends of the poles in hemp, soak the hemp in sperm oil, set the oil and hemp on fire, and push the flaming poles out through the windows of the engine room on each side of the boat to “light the way” for the Rochester. Although Daniel Drew was often on the Rochester, Hoffman never went up or down the river on the Swallow, but always patronized the day boat from Upper Red Hook.

His standing orders to the Captain of the Swallow were to keep ahead of the Rochester if he got to Albany with nothing left on board but the boiler and the hull, and to go past the landings if necessary. Frequently the mails were not landed at one or another town along the way until the down trip, but the Government fine of $50 for each failure to land mails was usually remitted. The Rochester never beat the Swallow, which was sold to Daniel Drew in 1844, who withdrew her from the Albany Line. On April 7, 1845, at 8 P. M., while running at full speed, in a blinding snowstorm, the Swallow ran on a rock near Athens. Although the boat sank only to the after gangway, 23 passengers out of 200 lost their lives by jumping into the water. The boat was raised and subsequently turned into a barge, and may still be in existence. The engines were taken to Troy, where they can now be seen dally, operating the machinery of the Burden Iron Works, apparently as good as ever.

On the sale of the Swallow, Mr. Hoffman withdrew from the New-York and Albany service. From that time to this, the People’s Line has run the following steamboats between New York and Albany, naming them in their order: The Westchester, the Emerald, the Rochester, the Utica, the (new) North America, the South America, the Knickerbocker, the Hendrick Hudson, the Isaac Newton, the Dean Richmond, the St. John, and the Drew. Of these, only the Dean Richmond and the Drew are now [1891] in active service.

The next great race on the Hudson was between Le Grand B. Cannon's Empire of the Hudson River Steamboat Association and the South America of Drew's People’s Line, after the introduction of coal for fuel. This occurred in July, 1847. The boats started from their perspective piers at 6:40 A. M., having no passengers on board, nor anything that would add weight to the boats and hamper their speed.

On the signal, both boats moved off together, to the cheers of a vast crowd, and ran side by side twenty-five miles, when the Empire forged ahead, and at Kinderhook, eighty miles above New-York, was nine minutes in advance. As the Empire neared Hudson, Engineer Lighthall approached Capt. Stephen R. Roe and said that it would be necessary to put in there to get coal, the supply having almost run out. Now Roe’s orders were to beat the South America or to burn the inside of the boat up, and to put in at Hudson for coal meant sure defeat, so he told the engineer to go ahead. "We are now in shallow water," he said, "the South America can't pass us, and all we've got to do is to keep the old thing going.”

They kept the old thing going. When the last pound of coal was in the furnace, they threw the fenders in after it, and then they burned the chairs and the tables, then they stripped the boat of all the light woodwork and burned that, too. A search was instituted, and a lot of demijohns and champagne baskets was found and sacrificed, and when the Empire reached the Lydius Street wharf in Albany there was literally nothing of her left, but the hull and solid woodwork. The race was so close that, as the Empire turned into her pier, the South America was abreast of the bulkhead. One of those on board the Empire visited the South America and found not a pound of coal in the bunkers or a chair or settee in the cabin. The Captain of the South America was L. W. Brainerd.

The third and last of the great ante-bellum races was that between the C. Vanderbilt and the Oregon, in July, 1860. The C. Vanderbilt was owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Oregon by George Law, father of the present Sixth and Eighth Avenue surface railroad magnate. The stake was $10,000. The start was from a stakeboat off the Battery, and the course was to and around a stakeboat off Sing Sing and return. No passengers or guests were allowed on either boat. The umpire on board the C. Vanderbilt was George Law and the umpire on the Oregon was Capt. Jacob H. Vanderbilt of Staten Island, brother of the Commodore. The Commodore was in the pilot house of the C. Vanderbilt from start to finish, and thus lost his $10,000, as the sequel will tell.

The start was made at 10 A. M., and the C. Vanderbilt got the lead at the outset, and kept it until the stakeboat off Sing Sing was reached. In turning the stakeboat the Commodore, in a fit of excitement and fancying that the boat was not swinging around fast enough, pulled what he thought was the signal for the engineer to increase speed. But he pulled the wrong bell, and, to his horror and to the rage of the pilot, the boat stopped, and the Oregon gracefully swung around and into the lead. The Commodore could swear fluently on all occasions, but the volubility of his profanity on that occasion beat his record.

The C. Vanderbilt was built in 1859 by Sneden at the foot of Tenth Street, East River. The Oregon afterward ran on the Stonington Line through Long Island Sound, and was impaled on a rook at Hell Gate at 2:30 o’clock one morning. [editor's note: around 3:30 and 3:45 a.m., April 18, 1846.] No lives were lost. The boat was got off the rock, but so many heavy keelsons were required in strengthening the frame that the boat never afterward developed great speed.

An appalling casualty marked one of the old-time races on the Hudson. This was the race between the Henry Clay and the Armenia, both boats of the smaller class, in 1850. The Armenia belonged to the People's Line, but is now one of the fleet of the Day Line, which consists of the New-York, the Albany, the C. Vibbard, and the Armenia. Of these, only the New-York and the Albany are in active service. The Henry Clay and the Armenia were racing from Albany, with a full complement of passengers and freight, and the Henry Clay was several miles in advance, when it took fire near the boiler. The boat was headed for the east shore of the river and was beached two miles below Sing Sing at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The passengers congregated aft, but many of them were driven into the water by the flames, which were swept backward by the wind, and about fifty persons were either burned to death or drowned. Among the lost was Stephen Allen, a prominent citizen of New-York and one of the Croton Aqueduct Commissioners. The Armenia was too far in the rear to render assistance.

The opening of the New-York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1851 completed the demoralization of the steamboat traffic on the Hudson, begun by the sale of the Swallow and the retirement of Mr. Hoffman. The decline of this branch of travel and transportation is shown by the great decrease in the number of Albany steam boats.

The Dean Richmond sank off Rondout in 1868. Several months and elaborate efforts were required to raise the boat, and this and the repairs cost over $100,000. The St. John was burned at the foot of Canal Street several years ago.

Of the modern Hudson River steamboats, the fastest are said to be the Mary Powell and the New-York. There are many who consider the New-York to be faster than the Mary Powell, but the two boats have never raced. Indeed, although the Mary Powell has long held the name of being the swiftest steamboat afloat — has enjoyed the reputation, indeed, since 1862 — it is asserted by steamboat men that she has never been in an actual race with another steamboat in her long career. In connection with some of the tales of high speed by the Mary Powell and other boats, it should not be forgotten that the tide in the Hudson, in places, runs at the rate of nine miles an hour.

The Utica, one of the old-time racers of the People’s Line, figured incidentally in 1840 in one of the biggest thefts on record. At that time there was no Adams Express, and the business of that kind was controlled by Pomeroy & Co., which firm had its head offices in Wall Street. The firm used black trunks for the transportation of its valuables, and the black trunk was the well-known sign of the business. Models of it were nailed to the tops of wooden posts all over town and all over the country. Most of the money passing between the bank of New-York and those of the West was forwarded by Pomeroy & Co.

In the year in question the Utica reached her pier from Albany at 4:30 o'clock one Monday with a black trunk for Pomeroy & Co., containing $600,000 in gold and notes. On the arrival of the steamer at the dock, a man went on board with a push cart and calmly walked off with the black trunk, which was in front of the Captain's office. When the agent for Pomeroy & Co. went for the trunk at 7 A. M., it was gone, and the whole city was in a hubbub in a few hours. There was no trace of the thief, as no one had paid any attention to him.

A man named Banks, proprietor of Rathbun's Hotel, Buffalo, and Philo N. Rust, proprietor of the Syracuse House, Syracuse, N. Y., and several others, all friends, came to town on the Utica, and the party bought a two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar team of horses, and spent money freely for champagne, and literally ‘‘painted things red.” James Watson Webb, then editor of the New-York Courier and Enquirer, received information that Banks and his friends had stolen the trunk, and he published a long story accusing them of the crime. The information was furnished by a clairvoyant, a woman who knew Rust. They were put under police surveillance for a long time, but were not arrested.

One day a man took a five-hundred-dollar note of the old Merchants’ Bank into that bank for payment, and Teller Felter at once recognized the note by a private mark as one of those in the missing black trunk. The man was detained, and he confessed to getting the note from a man in Baxter Street. This person, who proved to have been the man with the push cart, was arrested forthwith, on the very eve of his departure for the West, and the trunk was recovered, together with all of the $600,000, except $1,500, which had been invested by the thief in Western land warrants at $1.25 per acre. He was convicted and sent to prison. The thief did not know what was in the trunk when he took it.

Editor's Note: This series of blog posts recounts the dramatic story of the Esopus Indian Nation’s Revolutionary War exodus. The original inhabitants of Ulster County, the Esopus Indians successfully maintained their sovereignty and traditional way of life in the face of overwhelming odds for over a century. These blog posts are summaries of a much fuller story that will be published in 2027.

Part 6. Revenge: 1780-1781

Over the course of 1779, the Esopus Indian Nation had become refugees for the fourth time in as many years. With their women, children, and elders now safe on Buffalo Creek, a river that flows into Lake Erie, the warriors of the Esopus Indian Nation continued to return to their ancestral homeland in Ulster County on war expeditions. Due to the devastation of their towns and those of the rest of Indian Country in 1778 and 1779 from the Butler and Sullivan Expeditions, respectively, thousands of warriors were ready for retribution. Early in May of 1780, a small Esopus Indian warparty appeared near Saugerties with the aim of capturing Rebel officials. Led by Benjamin Shanks and John Runnupe, the small mixed expedition of Esopus and Catskill Indian warriors captured Captain Jeremiah Snyder and his son Elias.[1] Capt. Snyder was a militia leader who had recently commanded the fort at Shandaken. The two were busy working in a farmfield when they were taken. They would spend the rest of the war as prisoners in Canada. In July, John Runnupe returned on a second raid with six other Esopus and Catskill Indians, this time to Shawangunk. He intended to capture Colonel Johannes Jansen, but only succedded in taking seven of Jansen’s African slaves. Runnupe never made it back to Fort Niagara: at an unknown location, deep in the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains, the captured slaves waited for an opportune moment and killed Runnupe and three others before returning home to enslavement.[2]

According to British Indian Department records, over the spring and summer of 1780 around twenty five Esopus Indian warriors were involved in at least five expeditions to their ancestral homeland, with targets including the Saugerties area, Shawangunk and the Delaware River around Cochecton.[3] As noted earlier, they seem to have been frequently accompanied by the few Catskill Indian warriors that remained. For many generations, the Catskill Indians had been their close friends and neighbors to the north in what is now Greene County. Later in the summer, thirty four Esopus and Catskill Indians were noted as serving directly under Joseph Brant, likely in a raid against the Mohawk Valley.[4] In the meantime, their wives, children, and other non-combattants survived as best they could on Buffalo Creek, growing corn and other crops, hunting and fishing. In September, Benjamin Shanks returned to Ulster County with three other Esopus warriors to try again and recapture Colonel Johannes Jansen; upon arrival, they were joined by an old friend with Loyalist sympathies, prominent settler Samuel Gonsalus.[5] They failed to capture Col. Jansen, and in their haste to get back to Fort Niagara (in all likelihood, they urgently needed to return to support their families with hunting before winter), they had to kill all the civilian prisoners they had taken, including two of Jansen’s slaves, who may have been among the captives that had killed John Runnupe the year previous.[6]

Winter did not bring a break to the retaliatory raids: with so many thousands of refugees now living in Seneca Country, game animals quickly disappeared, and many of the refugees were on the brink of starvation. Expeditions to their distant Delaware and Hudson Valley homeland removed some mouths to feed while supporting the strategy of weakening Rebel forces by capturing commanders and burning farmland. As often as not, cattle, horses and other livestock captured in the raids were quickly consumed by the starving warriors. In February of 1781, an expedition of fourteen Esopus and Catskill warriors headed towards Ulster and Greene Counties, led by their chief sachem, Philip Houghtaling; they may have been part of the party that captured prominent local Rebel militia captain David Abeel in nearby Coxsackie.[7] According to British Indian Department accounts, in May of 1781 the total number of Esopus Indians living on Buffalo Creek included sixty five men, women and children who, but three years before, had been living in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains. Another 188 men, women and children on the census, who had lived on the Susquehanna River near the town of Chughnut, were also primarily Esopus Indians.[8] Along with Munsees from Chemung and their former Nanticoke and Shawnee neighbors of the Susquehanna, they were organized under Indian Department Lieutenant Henry William Nelles, a former resident of the Mohawk Valley.

In early August of 1781, an expedition of nearly four hundred warriors and Loyalist rangers raided the Rondout Valley. They burned dozens of houses around the settlements of Napanoch and Wawarsing and as far east as Mombaccus – areas that, mere decades earlier, formed the heart of Esopus Indian Country.[9] Although most of the warriors were Seneca, they were piloted by Esopus Indian scouts, who were intimately familiar with the settled parts of Ulster County. The Esopus Indian pilots, which included war captain Ben Shanks, abandoned the expedition as soon as it entered the Rondout Valley. According to one account, the Esopus pilots had been drying some damp black powder by the fire when it accidentally set abalaze, badly burning them.[10] The force of now-mostly Seneca warriors was soon completely lost, but “behaved beyond expectation while in the settlement[s] and on the road, having lost and got their people wounded.”[11] It’s possible that that the Esopus Indian pilots also decided to abandon the Seneca raid into their own homeland because of the failure of the Senecas to distinguish between Loyalists and Rebels, civilians and non-combatants in raids and battles elsewhere. From the early days of the war, the Esopus Indians’ leadership had always shown reluctance to cause unnecessary harm to their former Ulster County settler neighbors, many of whom they had once counted as close friends.
                                                                     To Be Continued…

Citations:
[1] The Catskill Indians were a Mohican-speaking band whose traditional homeland included all of Greene County and parts of Schoharie and Albany Counties to the north of the Esopus Indians. For at least two centuries, the Catskill Indians were the Esopus Indian Nation’s primary allies and the people with whom they shared the Catskill Mountains.
[2] “The Captivity of Jeremiah Snyder… During the Revolutionary War”  in The Ulster Sentinel, Kingston, NY on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1827; transcribed by Archivist Lisa Bruck.
[3] Haldimand Papers, Reel h1448.1305. National Archives of Canada.
[4] Ibid., Reel h1448.1090.
[5] Quinlan, James Eldridge. History of Sullivan County. GM Beebe & WT Morgans, Liberty, NY: 1878. 395-396.
[6] Gray, John A. The Indians: Or Narratives of Massacres and Depredations on the Frontier in Wawasink and Its Vicinity During the American Revolution. Rondout, NY: 1846. 42.
[7] “Return of the Indian War Parties” in Haldimand Papers 21767 Pt 4. National Archives of Canada.
[8] Haldimand Papers, Reel h1449.55. National Archives of Canada.
[9] Public Papers of George Clinton, Vol VII. Albany, NY: 1900. 198-199.
[10] Gray, John A. The Indians: Or Narratives of Massacres and Depredations on the Frontier in Wawasink and Its Vicinity During the American Revolution. Rondout, NY: 1846. 45.
[11] Smy, William A. The Butler Papers, Part III (1780-1782). Brock University Collections, 1994.

On approaching Albany, three or four miles before we reach the banks of the Hudson, we rise to a considerable elevation, and have a beautiful view of the windings of that river and the Mohawk, through an amazing extent of country, studded with farms and villages, interspersed with the remains of the forest, and ranges of hills.  Far off to the northward, the eye is carried along a range of mountains till they are lost in the mists of the horizon.  Near sun-set, we arrived at Lansingburg, beautifully situated on the banks of the Hudson, opposite the mouth of the Mohawk.  It consists principally of one wide street, about a mile in length; the houses and stores are most of them of brick; it contains 2,000 inhabitants.  Leaving Lansingburg, we proceed three miles along the banks of the Hudson, which is here eight or nine hundred feet wide, and varied with fertile islands, and arrive at Troy, the third commercial town in the State of New York; it has the appearance of rising to importance, being well-built, compact, and at the head of light sloop navigation.  The site of Troy was occupied as a farm, in 1787; now here is a thriving well-built town of 5,000 inhabitants.  Passing through Troy, we crossed the Hudson, and after a drive of six miles, arrived at Mr. Moody's tavern, Market Street, Albany, where we staid.

ALBANY was first settled in 1614, by the Dutch, as a trading post with the Indians.  In 1664, along with the whole country, it passed into the hands of the English, and the settlement and fort, then called Orange, received its present name in honour to the Duke of York; in 1686, it received its city charter, which is the oldest of any in the United States.

Albany is the legislative capital of New York, and may justly be considered as "unrivalled in its situation"; distant from the city of New York, 160 miles, and at the head of the sloop navigation of the Hudson, it commands an extensive back country trade, not only with the most fertile parts of the State, but with parts of Vermont and Upper Canada.  It is laid out in streets extending along the river, and others crossing these; the site of the city rising about two hundred feet, one mile from the river; this street is built throughout with handsome four story brick stores; at the quay, vessels load and unload with the greatest facility.  Court Street and Market Street, are long and handsome, of an irregular width and direction, they are full of good shops.  Pearl Street is a handsome width, with many good houses, but it is disfigured by some old Dutch gables, and red pantiles.  State Street, in the centre of the city, is a noble street, crossing these and some others, it rises up the gentle bank of the river, and is from 100 to 130 feet wide.  The houses of Albany are four-fifths of brick, three or four stories high; the shops are as well stores with goods, and the wharfs present as much proportionate bustle as those of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.
             "In 1812, 50 large sloops belonging to Albany.
                            60 . . . ditto . . . . ditto . . . .  Troy and Lansingburg.
                             26 . . . ditto . . . . ditto . . . .  New York, & c.
                             70 . . . ditto . . . . ditto . . . .  New Jersey and the Eastern States.
Amounting to   260
Including twenty schooners, paid wharfage duty by the year; besides these, 150
sloops and schooners paid transitory trading visits the same year."  Spafford.
 [Horatio Gates Spafford. A Gazetteer of the State of New-York.  Albany, 1813, p. 118,
col. 1]

The trade, since that time, is very much increased; above 125,000 quarters of wheat are exported yearly, besides every other sort of framing produce to a great amount.  (p.  245)  Manufactures of tobacco, chocolate, cast and wrought iron, and brass, leather, and wood, are in successful operation.  There are five breweries, several distilleries, hatteries, chandlers' works, and ship-yards; and in the neighbourhood, many grist and saw mills, and small manufactures.
***
The streets are well lighted, and mostly well paved, having side walks, but cellars and palisades project in some places, and present numerous pitfalls to the unwary.  That nuisance of some other American towns, "herds of pigs," are permitted, to the
disgrace of the authorities.

The dress, manners, and customs, are as in other principal towns.  The Dutch part of the population are said not to be famous for their hospitality, perhaps it is an unjust slander.  Education is well attended to by individuals and the State; Dutch schools are discontinued.

Albany contained 6,026 inhabitants in 1797; in 1810, the census gave 9,356; in 1813, they had increased to 12,000 [citing Spafford]; and now, 1817, can be little short of 14,000.  ***

The view from Albany across the river, near (p. 247) half a mile wide, is delightful; on the opposite bank are situated two villages about one mile apart, divided by fields studded with neat cottages and seats, and backed by a range of hills, covered with the varied productions of the forest.

The roads from various parts of New England strike through Albany; and I see by the Albany Gazette, that at least five hundred emigrants from the eastward, have passed through the city weekly since the first of September.  The Northern States are now little more than a nursery for the more inviting, temperate, and fertile regions of the West.

16th October, Thursday.  Having parted with Mr. Bent, at nine o'clock this morning, I took passage for New York, in the very fine steam-boat, CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON, fare seven dollars, and boarded; one dollar is also charged for the State, toward forwarding the great Western Canal, which is to unite the waters of Lake Ontario with the Hudson, and thereby connect all the extensive and populating country round that Lake, and on the upper part of the St. Lawrence with Albany and New York.  This dollar charge appears to be unfair, and operates as a tax on those who travel by steam-boat on the Hudson, whether natives or foreigners; however, when I consider the utility and magnitude of the undertaking, and the ardent spirit for improvement manifested by the citizens of New York, I do not wonder at their passing such a law, and as it is not attached to the common passage boats, but only to the chartered steam-boats, and they are so excellently conducted, and the passage so reasonable, even with this extra demand; I am almost satisfied with it.
       
The CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON is 526 tons burden, her length on deck 165 feet, breadth 50; she is extremely well fitted up for accommodation.  Fifty ladies can sleep singly, and 150 gentlemen can have the same privilege, besides births for the people employed about the vessel.  There are three gentlemen's cabins; one of them, the largest, is used for meals, in which all the passengers, ladies and gentlemen, dine; there is also one ladies' cabin, on deck; a smoking cabin, baggage-room, wash-room, clerk's office, and kitchen, all on deck.  the ladies are accommodated with female servants.
       
In descending from Albany, the shores of the river are gently rising, and well settled; many of the inhabitants are of Dutch descent.  At about half past twelve we arrived at Hudson, another city which was a wilderness, previous to 1784.  It contains about 5,000 inhabitants, and as a place of trade, ranks the fourth or fifth in the State.  It is distant 130 miles from New York, at the head of the ship navigation.  Several ships and brigs lay at the wharfs.  Hudson is built on a small bay; opposite it, in the river, which is here about one mile wide, is a low marshy island; beyond this, across the river, flourishes the handsome of village of Athens; and one mile lower down in Catskill, a considerable village, that gives its name to the township in which Athens, and two or three other villages are situated.  Here the extensive range of Apallachian Mountains commence, and running a south-west course, divide the middle and southern States from the western.
       
We passed many handsome villages and elegant seats in the course of the day, particularly the seat of the late R. R. Livingstone, forty-five miles below Albany; it is very handsome, and remarkable for having "flocks of near 1,000 sheep on its grounds, all
descended from the celebrated flock of Rambouillet, in France.  They are thought to
have improved in weight.  Six hundred and forty-five of these sheep are at least half-
bloods, many of them much higher grades."  [quoting Spafford]  Poughkeepsie, eighty-five miles from Albany, is romantically seated in a rugged indenture of the river, bounded left and right, by almost perpendicular cliffs.  The population of this village, in 1810, was 2,981, and of the township 4,670.  Towards evening, we reached that interesting part of the river called the high lands.  Here the channel is confined between perpendicular crags and hills, of the most romantic description; not so their names. Butter Hill is 1,432 feet, the Crow's Nest 1,330 feet, Bull Hill 1,391 feet, Anthony's Nose 1,128 feet, above the level of the river."  [quoting Spafford's Gazetteer again]  West Point is situated amongst these hills, and is rendered famous in history by the defection of Arnold, and the unfortunate death of the young and gallant Major André. It is a strong fortress, and contains a United States arsenal, a small garrison, and a military school.  Stony Point is on the other side of the river, below West Point, and was the scene of sanguinary conflicts during the war of independence.  By one next morning, we arrived at New York, performing the distance of 165 miles in sixteen hours, partly against the tide.  We called at six of seven places on our passage, landing and
receiving many passengers and baggage; all which however is done with much expedition; it does not detain the boat altogether ten minutes.