grounds, and many apple and pear trees are still left standing, set there by the hands of the red man before the country had been occupied by Europeans." * * * For here amid these hills he once kept court-- He who his country's eagle taught to soar And fired those stars which shine o'er every shore. _Charles Fenno Hoffman._ * * * To return to Brinkerhoff, "The first purchase of land in the county of Dutchess, was made in the town of Fishkill. On the 8th day of February, 1682, a license was given by Thomas Dongan, Commander-in-chief of the Province of New York, to Francis Rombout and Gulian Ver Planck, to purchase a tract of land from the Indians. Under this license, they bought, on the 8th day of August, 1683, of the Wappinger Indians, all their right, title and interest to a certain large tract of land, afterward known as the Rombout precinct. Gulian Ver Planck died before the English patent was issued by Governor Dongan; Stephanus Van Cortland was then joined in it with Rombout, and Jacobus Kipp substituted as the representative of the children of Gulian Ver Planck. On the 17th day of October, 1685, letters patent, under the broad seal of the Province of New York, were granted by King James the Second, and the parties to whom these letters patent were granted, became from that time the undisputed proprietors of the soil. There were 76,000 acres of these lands lying in Fishkill, and other towns taken from the patent, and 9,000 acres lying in the limits of the town of Poughkeepsie. Besides paying the natives, as a further consideration for the privilege of their license, they were to pay the commander-in-chief, Thomas Dongan, six bushels of good and merchantable winter wheat every year." In the Book of Patents, at Albany, vol. 5, page 72, will be found the deed, of special interest to the historian and antiquarian. * * * It was a dainty day, and it grew more dainty towards its close as the lights and shadows stretched athwart our Highland landscape. _Susan Warner._ * * *