Finally, driven to the last extremity, with the Americans on the north, where Stark had seized Fort Edward, to the east, where Fellows held the river bank, and to the south, where Gates had thrown his victorious army, Burgoyne sent in his terms of surrender. Almost on the site of old Fort Hardy, his brave but unfortunate troops laid down their arms, and near the site of the old Schuyler mansion, which they had so recently burned, Burgoyne surrendered his sword to General Gates. Along the road, just across the Fishkill, the American army stretched in two lines, between which the disarmed prisoners were marched to the shrill notes of the fife and the measured beat of the drum, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” played for the first time as a national air. [Illustration: SIGN “PUTNAM AND THE WOLF” ON PUTNAM’S TAVERN, SARATOGA SPRINGS. ORIGINAL SIGN IN GRAND UNION HOTEL, SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y.] General Schuyler, the hospitable and magnanimous, was on the ground. Neither the slight he had received from Congress nor the injuries inflicted on him by the British could quench his generous nature. He rejoiced with his victorious countrymen, he sympathized with the fallen enemy, he protected and cared for the helpless women. During the summer of 1777 he had cut a road from his farm at old Saratoga through the wilderness to the High Rock Spring, already famous for its medicinal properties. He built a small frame house on the ledge of rocks overhanging the spring, and here for several summers his family came with him for rest and recreation as they had formerly gone to the comfortable mansion at old Saratoga. This was replaced by a rude cabin, and there, in 1783, Washington was entertained when, with General Clinton, he came to visit the Saratoga battle-ground. The party proceeded northward to Ticonderoga, and on their return stopped at High Rock Spring. General Washington was so strongly impressed with the value of the water and the beauty of the region that shortly afterward he tried to buy the property, but Livingston, Van Dam, and others had already secured it. The events of the Revolution had discouraged the few settlers who first came to the springs, and for years afterwards but two log cabins offered a shelter to adventurous tourists. In 1791, Gideon Putnam cleared his farm at Saratoga, and Governor Gilman of New Hampshire in 1792 discovered Congress Spring. Putnam built his large boarding-house and tavern, and far-seeing and liberal-minded, he purchased extensive tracts of land and secured the foundation of the beautiful and prosperous village which is now a delight to visitors and a valued home to its residents. It is essentially a place of “homes,” where people of large or small means are assured of that quiet and ease which cannot be found in cities or towns which depend for their prosperity on active commercial or manufacturing interests. [Illustration: SEAL OF SARATOGA.] [Illustration] SCHENECTADY