Hudson Valley

“ THE CATSKILL WITCH When the Dutch gave the name of Katzbergs to the mountains west of the Hudson, by reason of the wild-cats and panthers that ranged there, they obliterated the beautiful Indian Ontiora, "mountains of the sky." In one tradition of the red men these hills were bones of a monster that fed on human beings until the Great Spirit turned it into stone as it was floundering toward the ocean to bathe. The two lakes near the summit were its eyes. These peaks were the home of an Indian witch, who adjusted the weather for the Hudson Valley with the certainty of a signal service bureau. ”

“ At the particular spot I wish to describe, the hills fall back from the Hudson, north and south, far enough to leave a charming little valley of some two or three hundred acres cradled in their wildness and opening greenly to the river, which is sure to catch a sheaf of sunbeams in its bosom when the day fires its last golden salute from behind the Palisades. Sheltered by hills, some broken into cliffs, some rolling smoothly back, clothed in variously tinted undergrowth and fine old trees, the valley itself received a double charm from the contrast of cultivation. ”

“ On one side of us reposed the long broad valley of the Hudson, with its cities, towns, villages, woods, hills and plains, whose crowded highway was diminished to a narrow girdle of deep blue. Towards the south, hill beyond hill, field beyond field receded to the sky, occasionally enlivened by a peaceful lake. On our right a multitudinous array of rugged mountains lay piled up, apparently as impassable as the bottomless gulf. In the north, old High Peak, King of the Catskills, bared his bosom to the moonlight, as if demanding and expecting the homage of the world. ”

“ There are numerous breathing spots. One of the most magnificent views obtainable anywhere in the Hudson Valley is from Downing Park, where from the observatory the city appears to be almost beneath your feet. The Hudson River presents an unobstructed view for miles, and a half dozen ranges of mountains appear to view. The Catskills at the north, Fishkill and the Beacons on the east, Storm King and Crow Nest on the south, Schunnemunk at the southwest, and the Shawangunk range far to the west. ”

“ Go with us and stand on a crest of upland and you will see where the plain abruptly ends. Here lies a rich and verdant lowland, perhaps one hundred and fifty miles in length, spread out before you; a vast expanse of green meadow through which the Mohawk winds slowly and majestically to join the Hudson. You glimpse from here a distant gap in the mountain through which the river has worn a gorge. "Here you see a long freight train (one of the tireless servants of the New York Central) coming from the Mississippi valley." You are amazed that it does not have to climb the foothills. ”

“ Most of these variations may be included in a threefold division of the lower Hudson valley. The uppermost of these extends from the south-eastern base of the Adirondack Mountains to the northern portal of the Highlands in Dutchess and Ulster counties. This is a lowland region of ancient Paleozoic rocks. Into the upper portion of this section of the river the non-tidal Hudson is depositing its load of detritus, building a delta below Troy. ”

“ The old grist mill there belongs to the Revolutionary period, and the Shawangunk Mountains rise in rugged, frowning peaks which overlook the valley and form a background of rare beauty. The heights of the Hudson River are seen in the distant horizon toward the east and north, and there is a rare combination of upland, valley, mountain and stream, forest slopes and well tilled farms which charms the beholder and forms a most attractive and beautiful landscape. Summer visitors are attracted here in large numbers, and they find much to admire and enjoy. ”

“ Some say that Hudson's spirit has made its home amid these hills, that it may look into the lovely valley that he discovered; but others hold that every twenty years he and his men assemble for a revel in the mountains that so charmed them when first seen swelling against the western heavens, and the liquor they drink on this night has the bane of throwing any mortal who lips it into a slumber whence nothing can arouse him until the day dawns when the crew shall meet again. ”

“ Imagine the Hudson, at the highlands, reduced to a sparkling little river a bowshot across, and a rich valley thridded by a road accompanying the remaining space between the mountains, and you have the scenery for the first thirty miles beyond Gratz. There is one more difference. On the edge of one of the most towering precipices, clear up against the clouds, hang the ruins of a noble castle. The rents in the wall, and the embrasures in the projecting turrets, seem set into the sky. Trees and vines grow within and about it, and the lacings of the twisted roots seem all that keep it together. ”

“ The whole course of the Hudson lies within it. As all the mountains rise to the southward, this valley has its floor constantly farther and farther above the sea, until in Southern Virginia much of its surface is about two thousand feet above that level. This southward increase of elevation secures it a somewhat similar climate throughout its whole length. This, the noblest valley in [xxvii] America, is a garden in fertility, and of exceeding beauty. Yet west of this valley the Alleghanies proper extend, a wide belt of mountains, far to the westward. ”

“ Hillsdale Village has a beautiful location and affords a good central point for visiting Mount Everett, with its wide prospect (altitude 2,624 feet) , Copake Lake six miles [page 172] to the west, Bash-Bish Falls six miles south, and Po-ka-no five miles to the northeast, sometimes known as White's Hill. The Po-ka-no, Columbia County's noblest outlook, 1,713 feet, commands the Hudson Valley for eighty miles; and the owner says that he saw the fireworks from there the night of the Newburgh centennial in 1883. From the summit can be seen "Monument Mountain" and the Green Mountains of Vermont. ”

“ The settled area covered almost all of Long Island and the Hudson Valley to a point a few miles north of Albany. Most of the population of East New Jersey was along the coast opposite New York harbor. The English predominated, but there was a sprinkling of Dutch, Scotch, and Huguenots.
Industry in New York.—During the first decades of the Dutch occupation of the Hudson Valley the fur trade had been almost the only business, but after 1638 many settlers came who began general farming. Lumbering also developed. ”

“ The Hudson River and Lakes George and Champlain form a natural highway from the St. Lawrence southward to the ocean. By the Mohawk and a short carrying-place, the Hudson was from early times connected with the Great Lakes. The Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Roanoke, and other Southern rivers can be traced northwestward to their sources in the mountains; and hard by are the headwaters of west-flowing feeders of the Mississippi. |The Appalachian valley system.| The Appalachian mountains run for the most part in parallel ridges northeast and southwest ”

“ The sources of the Hudson must be sought in those wilds of the state of New York which lie in the interior between Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. The tide of immigration setting westward through the valley of the Mohawk, or eddying about the shores of those lakes, has insulated that region of country, and it remains to this day almost a wilderness. Within a morning's ride from the springs of Saratoga, where luxury and fashion keep holiday from June to September, one can find oneself in a solitude that would become the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Yes, everybody is acquainted with the names of these mountains, but few with their peculiarities of scenery. They are situated about eight miles from the Hudson, rise to an average elevation of about thirty-five hundred feet, and running in a straight line from north to south, cover a space of some twenty-five miles. The fertile valley on the east is as beautiful as heart could desire ”

“ It is not the fault of the Rhine with its nine hundred miles of rapid flow that it looks tame compared with the Hudson. Even the Mississippi, draining a valley three thousand miles in extent, looks insignificant at St. Louis or New Orleans contrasted with the Hudson at Tarrytown. The Hudson is in fact a vast estuary of the sea; the tide rises two feet at Albany and six inches at Troy. A professor of the Berlin University says: "You lack our castles but the Hudson is infinitely grander." Thackeray, in "The Virginians," gives the Hudson the verdict of beauty ”

“ In many of our valleys its flowing waters left long, low ridges, gentle in outline, made up entirely of sand and gravel, or of clay. In other places it left moraines made up of earth, gravel, and rock-fragments that make a very rough streak through the farmer's land. All those high, level terraces along the Hudson, such as that upon which West Point stands, were the work of the old ice-sheet that once filled the river valley. The melting ice was also the chief agent in building up the enormous clay-banks that are found along the shores of the Hudson. ”

“ Along the mountain lines are a few lofty peaks, and there are many isolated hills and rocky precipices. Parts of its boundaries are the Hudson River on the northeast, the Delaware and Mongaup Rivers on the west, and the Shawangunk Kill on the northwest. Near the center the Wallkill winds along its rich valley into Ulster County, and thence into the Hudson. Its principal tributary on the northwest is Rutgers Creek—which also has several tributaries—and others are Monhagen Creek, Mechanicstown Creek and Shawangunk Kill. ”

“ The Mountain House Park has a valley frontage of over three miles in extent, and consists of 2,780 acres of magnificent forest and farming lands, traversed in all directions by many miles of carriage roads and paths, leading to various noted places of interest. The Crest, Newman's Ledge, Bear's Den, Prospect Rock on North Mountain, and Eagle Rock and Palenville Overlook on South Mountain, from which the grandest views of the region are obtained, are contained in the property. ”

“ PROBABLY no institution or organization in Canada has done more towards pioneering and paving the way for settlement than the Hudson’s Bay Company. From the very beginning, when the first white settlers began to arrive, agricultural lands were made available for settlement by the Company in the Red River Valley, and as the demand increased, prairie lands were surveyed into regular townships, and lands accruing to the Company were made available for sale at reasonable prices, and every inducement and encouragement given to agriculturists to settle thereon. ”

“ For many miles on this railroad are beautiful views of the Catskill Mountains, 3,800 feet high, several miles distant on the opposite or west side of the river, and which furnish the name for the Catskill formation. The wide valley between them and the river is composed of Chemung, Hamilton, Lower Helderberg and Hudson River. The geology on the east or railroad side is entirely different. ”

“ They are a numerous and a vociferous colony, but the noise of their loudest cawings, when they rush out like a black cloud and are most excited, is almost drowned by the louder roar of the torrent beneath—the river's great cry of liberty and joy on issuing from the blackness in the hollow of the hills into the sunshine of heaven and the verdure of that beautiful valley. ”

“ The Plain itself is not a precisely denned area, and may be made to include as much or little as will suit the writer's purpose. If you want a continuous plain, with no dividing valley cutting through it, you must place it between the Avon and Wylye Rivers, a distance about fifteen miles broad and as many long, with the village of Tilshead in its centure ”

“ A few yards away was a pile of dry brushwood, and some faggots bound together with ropes of straw, all apparently freshly cut from the neighboring bushes. As I stood there, wondering what these things meant, I happened to glance away in the direction of the house where I intended to call, which was not now visible owing to an intervening grove of tall trees, and was surprised to discover a troop of about fifteen persons advancing along the valley in my direction. Before them marched a tall white-bearded old man ”

“ There the wind and driving rain are not for but against you, and may overcome you with misery. One feels their loneliness, monotony, and desolation on many days, sometimes even when it is not wet, and I here recall an amusing encounter with a bird-scarer during one of these dreary spells.
It was in March, bitterly cold, with an east wind which had been blowing many days, and overhead the sky was of a hard, steely grey. I was cycling along the valley of the Ebble, and finally leaving it pushed up a long steep slope and set off over the high plain by a dusty road with the wind hard against me. ”

“ So many are the great shade trees, beeches and ashes and elms, that from some points the valley has the appearance of a continuous wood—a contiguity of shade. And the wood hides the villages, at some points so effectually that looking down from the hills you may not catch a glimpse of one and imagine it to be a valley where no man dwells. ”

“ By-and-by the sunlight touched the tops of the tall plants, and working his way towards the side from which the light came he soon made his escape from that prison, and came into a place where he could walk without trouble, and could see the earth and sky again. Further on, in a grassy part of the valley, he found some sweet roots wrhich greatly refreshed him, and at last, leaving the valley, he came out on a high grassy plain, and saw the hills before him looking very much nearer than he had ever seen them look before. ”