G. WASHINGTON. Leaving Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh one turns southward and crosses Quassaick Creek, at one time known as the Vale of Avoca, to hear above the whirr of to-day’s many intersecting railroads the echoes of Indian paddles. It is said the ghosts of Indians still linger here in their canoes waiting to carry away Washington, for near is the site of the Ettrick house whose host treacherously invited the Commander-in-Chief to dinner with intent to kidnap him. [Illustration: THE WILLIAMS HOUSE.] “General, you are my prisoner,” said Mr. Ettrick, pushing aside his wine-glass and rising from the table. “Pardon me, sir, but you are mine,” was the quiet answer, and instantly the life-guards appeared and poor Ettrick was put in chains, his pretty daughter escaping on account of the timely warning she had given her father’s guest. [Illustration: MONUMENT ON TEMPLE HILL, NEAR NEWBURGH.] [Illustration: THE VERPLANCK HOUSE. BARON STEUBEN’S HEADQUARTERS, WHERE THE “NICOLA LETTER” WAS WRITTEN.] Standing on the slopes of Snake Hill, to the west of Newburgh, where was the last cantonment of the American Army on the site of the Temple, a building used for Sunday services, for Masonic purposes and as a gathering-place for social entertainment, a site now marked by a monument, one hears again those words spoken by Washington when in March, 1783, the circulation of the Newburgh letters caused unrest among the unpaid troops. “You see, gentlemen,” he said as he arose to read his address, putting on his spectacles as he spoke, “that I have not only grown grey but blind in your service.... “Let me conjure you,” he continued, “by the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes under any specious pretense to overturn the liberties of our country and who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of civil discord.... “By thus determining and thus acting you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes ... you will by the dignity of your conduct afford occasion to posterity to say when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, ‘Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.’”