The Hudson: Three Centuries of History, Romance and InventionBruce, Wallace
History
The Hudson: Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention
Bruce, Wallace
Hudson River (N.Y. and N.J.) -- Guidebooks
and there, at Swartwoutville, Washington was often a visitor. Whenever
Washington was at Fishkill he made Colonel Brinckerhoff's his
headquarters. He occupied the bedroom back of the parlor, which
remains the same 'excepting a door that opens into the hall, which has
been cut through.' It is an old-fashioned house built of stone, with
the date 1738 on one of its gables." With the story of Fishkill we
close the largest page relating to our revolutionary heroes, and leave
behind us the Old Beacon Mountains which forever sentinel and proclaim
their glory.
* * *
No prouder sentinel of glory than the old Beacon
Mountain whose watch-fire guarded the valley and spoke
its rallying message to the Catskills and Berkshires and
the very foothills of the Green Mountains.
_Wallace Bruce._
* * *
The sun touched mountains in some places were of
a bright orange and the shadows between them deep
neutral tint or blue. And the river apparently had
stopped running to reflect.
_Susan Warner._
* * *
=Low Point=, or Carthage, is a small village on the east bank, about
four miles north of Fishkill. It was called by the early inhabitants
Low Point, as New Hamburgh, two miles north, was called High Point.
Opposite Carthage is Roseton, once known as Middlehope, and above this
we see the residence of Bancroft Davis and the Armstrong Mansion. We
now behold on the west bank a large flat rock, covered with cedars,
recently marked by a lighthouse, the--
=Duyvel's Dans Kammer.=--Here Hendrick Hudson, in his voyage up the
river, witnessed an Indian pow-wow--the first recorded fireworks in a
country which has since delighted in rockets and pyrotechnic displays.
Here, too, in later years, tradition relates the sad fate of a wedding
party. It seems that a Mr. Hans Hansen and a Miss Kathrina Van
Voorman, with a few friends, were returning from Albany, and
disregarding the old Indian prophecy, were all slain:--
"For none that visit the Indian's den
Return again to the haunts of men.
The knife is their doom! O sad is their lot!
Beware, beware of the blood-stained spot!"
Some years ago this spot was also searched for the buried treasures
of Captain Kidd, and we know of one river pilot who still dreams
semi-yearly of there finding countless chests of gold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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