Rondout is the termination of the Delaware and Hudson Canal (whence canal boats of coal find their way from the Pennsylvania Mountains to tidewater), also of the _Ulster and Delaware Railroad_, by which people find their way from tidewater to the Catskill Mountains, which have greeted the eye of the tourist for many miles down the Hudson. Originally all of the country-side in this vicinity was known as Esopus, supposed to be derived, according to Ruttenber, from the Indian word "seepus," a river. A "sopus Indian" was a Lowlander, and the name is intimately connected with a long reach of territory from Esopus Village, near West Park, to the mouth of the Esopus at Saugerties. In 1675 the mouth of the Rondout Creek was chosen by the New Netherland Company as one of the three fortified trading ports on the Hudson; a stockade was built under the guidance of General Stuyvesant in 1661 inclosing the site of old Kingston; a charter was granted in 1658 under the name of Wiltwyck, but changed in 1679 to Kingston. Few cities are so well off for old-time houses that span the century, and there is no congregation probably in the United States that has worshipped so many consecutive years in the same spot as the Dutch Reformed people of Kingston. Five buildings have succeeded the log church of 240 years ago. Dr. Van Slyke, in a recent welcome, said: "This church, which opens her doors to you, claims a distinction which does not belong even to the Collegiate Dutch Churches of Manhattan Island, and, by a peculiar history, stands identified more closely with Holland than any other of the early churches of this country. When every other church of our communion had for a long time been associated with an American Synod, this church retained its relations to the Classis of Amsterdam, and, after a period of independency and isolation, it finally allied itself with its American sisterhood as late as the year 1808. We still have three or four members whose life began before that date." * * * Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen Thy margin, and didst water the green fields; And now there is no night so still that they Can hear thy lapse. _William Cullen Bryant._ * * * Dominie Blom was the first preacher in Kingston. The church where he preached and the congregation that gathered to hear him have been tenderly referred to by the Rev. Dr. Belcher: "They've journeyed on from touch and tone; No more their ears shall hear The war-whoop wild, or sad death moan, Or words of fervid prayer; But the deeds they did and plans they planned, And paths of blood they trod, Have blessed and brightened all this land And hallowed it for God."